Electronic mail security using root cause analysis

ABSTRACT

Electronic communications passing through a communication gateway or similar device for an enterprise can be monitored for indicators of malicious activity. When potentially malicious activity is identified, a user-based inquiry can be employed to identify potential sources of the malicious activity within the enterprise network. More specifically, by identifying a user that sourced the communication, instead of or in addition to a network address, devices within the enterprise network associated with the user can be located, analyzed, and remediated as appropriate.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This application relates to management of communications for anenterprise network.

BACKGROUND

Enterprise networks can contain valuable information that forms anincreasingly attractive target for malicious actors. Useful techniquesfor securing endpoints in a network against malicious activity aredescribed by way of example in commonly-owned U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/263,955 filed on Apr. 28, 2014, U.S. application Ser. No.14/485,759 filed on Sep. 14, 2014, U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/042,862 filed on Feb. 12, 2016, U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/098,684 filed on Apr. 14, 2016, and U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/429,291 filed on Feb. 10, 2017, each of which is hereby incorporatedby reference in its entirety.

There remains a need for improved endpoint security, particularly withrespect to communications among endpoints within and beyond anenterprise network.

SUMMARY

Electronic communications passing through a communication gateway orsimilar device for an enterprise can be monitored for indicators ofmalicious activity. When potentially malicious activity is identified, auser-based inquiry can be employed to identify potential sources of themalicious activity within the enterprise network. More specifically, byidentifying a user that sourced the communication, instead of or inaddition to a network address, devices within the enterprise networkassociated with the user can be located, analyzed, and remediated asappropriate.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the devices,systems, and methods described herein will be apparent from thefollowing description of particular embodiments thereof, as illustratedin the accompanying drawings. The drawings are not necessarily to scale,emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of thedevices, systems, and methods described herein.

FIG. 1 illustrates an environment for threat management.

FIG. 2 illustrates a computer system.

FIG. 3 illustrates a threat management system.

FIG. 4 illustrates a system for behavioral tracking, coloring, andgeneration of indications of compromise (IOCs).

FIG. 5 illustrates a system for encryption management.

FIG. 6 illustrates a threat management system using heartbeats.

FIG. 7 shows an architecture for endpoint protection in an enterprisenetwork security system.

FIG. 8 illustrates a system for forensic analysis for computerprocesses.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of a method for forensic analysis for computerprocesses.

FIG. 10 illustrates an event graph.

FIG. 11 shows a communications gateway for an enterprise network.

FIG. 12 shows a method for managing security of electroniccommunications.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanyingfigures, in which preferred embodiments are shown. The foregoing may,however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construedas limited to the illustrated embodiments set forth herein.

All documents mentioned herein are hereby incorporated by reference intheir entirety. References to items in the singular should be understoodto include items in the plural, and vice versa, unless explicitly statedotherwise or clear from the context. Grammatical conjunctions areintended to express any and all disjunctive and conjunctive combinationsof conjoined clauses, sentences, words, and the like, unless otherwisestated or clear from the context. Thus, the term “or” should generallybe understood to mean “and/or” and so forth.

Recitation of ranges of values herein are not intended to be limiting,referring instead individually to any and all values falling within therange, unless otherwise indicated herein, and each separate value withinsuch a range is incorporated into the specification as if it wereindividually recited herein. The words “about,” “approximately,” or thelike, when accompanying a numerical value, are to be construed asindicating a deviation as would be appreciated by one of ordinary skillin the art to operate satisfactorily for an intended purpose. Ranges ofvalues and/or numeric values are provided herein as examples only, anddo not constitute a limitation on the scope of the describedembodiments. The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language(“e.g.,” “such as,” or the like) provided herein, is intended merely tobetter illuminate the embodiments and does not pose a limitation on thescope of the embodiments or the claims. No language in the specificationshould be construed as indicating any unclaimed element as essential tothe practice of the embodiments.

In the following description, it is understood that terms such as“first,” “second,” “third,” “above,” “below,” and the like, are words ofconvenience and are not to be construed as implying a chronologicalorder or otherwise limiting any corresponding element unless expresslystate otherwise.

FIG. 1 illustrates an environment for threat management. Specifically,FIG. 1 depicts a block diagram of a threat management system providingprotection to an enterprise against a plurality of threats—a context inwhich the following techniques may usefully be deployed. One aspectrelates to corporate policy management and implementation through aunified threat management facility 100. As will be explained in moredetail below, a threat management facility 100 may be used to protectcomputer assets from many threats, both computer-generated threats anduser-generated threats. The threat management facility 100 may bemulti-dimensional in that it may be designed to protect corporate assetsfrom a variety of threats and it may be adapted to learn about threatsin one dimension (e.g. worm detection) and apply the knowledge inanother dimension (e.g. spam detection). Policy management is one of thedimensions for which the threat management facility can provide acontrol capability. A corporation or other entity may institute a policythat prevents certain people (e.g. employees, groups of employees, typesof employees, guest of the corporation, etc.) from accessing certaintypes of computer programs. For example, the corporation may elect toprevent its accounting department from using a particular version of aninstant messaging service or all such services. In this example, thepolicy management facility 112 may be used to update the policies of allcorporate computing assets with a proper policy control facility or itmay update a select few. By using the threat management facility 100 tofacilitate the setting, updating and control of such policies thecorporation only needs to be concerned with keeping the threatmanagement facility 100 up to date on such policies. The threatmanagement facility 100 can take care of updating all of the othercorporate computing assets.

It should be understood that the threat management facility 100 mayprovide multiple services, and policy management may be offered as oneof the services. We will now turn to a description of certaincapabilities and components of the threat management system 100.

Over recent years, malware has become a major problem across theInternet 154. From both a technical perspective and a user perspective,the categorization of a specific threat type, whether as virus, worm,spam, phishing exploration, spyware, adware, or the like, is becomingreduced in significance. The threat, no matter how it is categorized,may need to be stopped at various points of a networked computingenvironment, such as one of an enterprise facility 102, including at oneor more laptops, desktops, servers, gateways, communication ports,handheld or mobile devices, firewalls, and the like. Similarly, theremay be less and less benefit to the user in having different solutionsfor known and unknown threats. As such, a consolidated threat managementfacility 100 may need to apply a similar set of technologies andcapabilities for all threats. In certain embodiments, the threatmanagement facility 100 may provide a single agent on the desktop, and asingle scan of any suspect file. This approach may eliminate theinevitable overlaps and gaps in protection caused by treating virusesand spyware as separate problems, while simultaneously simplifyingadministration and minimizing desktop load. As the number and range oftypes of threats has increased, so may have the level of connectivityavailable to all IT users. This may have led to a rapid increase in thespeed at which threats may move. Today, an unprotected PC connected tothe Internet 154 may be infected quickly (perhaps within 10 minutes)which may require acceleration for the delivery of threat protection.Where once monthly updates may have been sufficient, the threatmanagement facility 100 may automatically and seamlessly update itsproduct set against spam and virus threats quickly, for instance, everyfive minutes, every minute, continuously, or the like. Analysis andtesting may be increasingly automated, and also may be performed morefrequently; for instance, it may be completed in 15 minutes, and may doso without compromising quality. The threat management facility 100 mayalso extend techniques that may have been developed for virus andmalware protection, and provide them to enterprise facility 102 networkadministrators to better control their environments. In addition tostopping malicious code, the threat management facility 100 may providepolicy management that may be able to control legitimate applications,such as VoIP, instant messaging, peer-to-peer file-sharing, and thelike, that may undermine productivity and network performance within theenterprise facility 102.

The threat management facility 100 may provide an enterprise facility102 protection from computer-based malware, including viruses, spyware,adware, Trojans, intrusion, spam, policy abuse, uncontrolled access, andthe like, where the enterprise facility 102 may be any entity with anetworked computer-based infrastructure. In an embodiment, FIG. 1 maydepict a block diagram of the threat management facility 100 providingprotection to an enterprise against a plurality of threats. Theenterprise facility 102 may be corporate, commercial, educational,governmental, or the like, and the enterprise facility's 102 computernetwork may be distributed amongst a plurality of facilities, and in aplurality of geographical locations, and may include administration 134,a firewall 138A, an appliance 140A, server 142A, network devices 148A-B,clients 144A-D, such as protected by computer security facilities 152,and the like. It will be understood that any reference herein to clientfacilities may include the clients 144A-D shown in FIG. 1 andvice-versa. The threat management facility 100 may include a pluralityof functions, such as security management facility 122, policymanagement facility 112, update facility 120, definitions facility 114,network access rules facility 124, remedial action facility 128,detection techniques facility 130, testing facility 118, threat researchfacility 132, and the like. In embodiments, the threat protectionprovided by the threat management facility 100 may extend beyond thenetwork boundaries of the enterprise facility 102 to include clients144D (or client facilities) that have moved into network connectivitynot directly associated or controlled by the enterprise facility 102.Threats to client facilities may come from a plurality of sources, suchas from network threats 104, physical proximity threats 110, secondarylocation threats 108, and the like. Clients 144A-D may be protected fromthreats even when the client 144A-D is not located in association withthe enterprise 102, such as when a client 144E-F moves in and out of theenterprise facility 102, for example when interfacing with anunprotected server 142C through the Internet 154, when a client 144F ismoving into a secondary location threat 108 such as interfacing withcomponents 140B, 142B, 148C, 148D that are not protected, and the like.In embodiments, the threat management facility 100 may provide anenterprise facility 102 protection from a plurality of threats tomultiplatform computer resources in a plurality of locations and networkconfigurations, with an integrated system approach. It should beunderstood that an enterprise model is applicable to organizations andusers of any size or type. For example, an enterprise may be or mayinclude a group or association of endpoints, networks, users, and thelike within or outside of one or more protected locations. It should beunderstood that an enterprise may include one or more offices orbusiness locations, or one or more homes, where each location, orportions of each location, or a collection of locations may be treatedas a client facility.

In embodiments, the threat management facility 100 may be provided as astand-alone solution. In other embodiments, the threat managementfacility 100 may be integrated into a third-party product. Anapplication programming interface (e.g. a source code interface) may beprovided such that the threat management facility 100 may be integrated.For instance, the threat management facility 100 may be stand-alone inthat it provides direct threat protection to an enterprise or computerresource, where protection is subscribed to directly 100. Alternatively,the threat management facility 100 may offer protection indirectly,through a third-party product, where an enterprise may subscribe toservices through the third-party product, and threat protection to theenterprise may be provided by the threat management facility 100 throughthe third-party product.

The security management facility 122 may include a plurality of elementsthat provide protection from malware to enterprise facility 102 computerresources, including endpoint security and control, email security andcontrol, web security and control, reputation-based filtering, controlof unauthorized users, control of guest and non-compliant computers, andthe like. The security management facility 122 may be a softwareapplication that may provide malicious code and malicious applicationprotection to a client facility computing resource. The securitymanagement facility 122 may have the ability to scan the client facilityfiles for malicious code, remove or quarantine certain applications andfiles, prevent certain actions, perform remedial actions and performother security measures. In embodiments, scanning the client facilitymay include scanning some or all of the files stored to the clientfacility on a periodic basis, scanning an application when theapplication is executed, scanning files as the files are transmitted toor from the client facility, or the like. The scanning of theapplications and files may be performed to detect known malicious codeor known unwanted applications. In an embodiment, new malicious code andunwanted applications may be continually developed and distributed, andupdates to the known code database may be provided on a periodic basis,on a demand basis, on an alert basis, or the like.

The security management facility 122 may provide email security andcontrol, where security management may help to eliminate spam, viruses,spyware and phishing, control of email content, and the like. Thesecurity management facility's 122 email security and control mayprotect against inbound and outbound threats, protect emailinfrastructure, prevent data leakage, provide spam filtering, and thelike. In an embodiment, security management facility 122 may provide forweb security and control, where security management may help to detector block viruses, spyware, malware, unwanted applications, help controlweb browsing, and the like, which may provide comprehensive web accesscontrol enabling safe, productive web browsing. Web security and controlmay provide Internet use policies, reporting on suspect devices,security and content filtering, active monitoring of network traffic,URI filtering, and the like. In an embodiment, the security managementfacility 122 may provide for network access control, which may providecontrol over network connections. Network control may stop unauthorized,guest, or non-compliant systems from accessing networks, and may controlnetwork traffic that may not be bypassed from the client level. Inaddition, network access control may control access to virtual privatenetworks (VPN), where VPNs may be a communications network tunneledthrough another network, establishing a logical connection acting as avirtual network. In embodiments, a VPN may be treated in the same manneras a physical network.

The security management facility 122 may provide host intrusionprevention through behavioral based protection, which may guard againstunknown threats by analyzing behavior before software code executes.Behavioral based protection may monitor code when it runs and interveneif the code is deemed to be suspicious or malicious. Advantages ofbehavioral based protection over runtime protection may include codebeing prevented from running. Whereas runtime protection may onlyinterrupt code that has already partly executed, behavioral protectioncan identify malicious code at the gateway or on the file servers anddelete the code before it can reach endpoint computers and the like.

The security management facility 122 may provide reputation filtering,which may target or identify sources of known malware. For instance,reputation filtering may include lists of URIs of known sources ofmalware or known suspicious IP addresses, or domains, say for spam, thatwhen detected may invoke an action by the threat management facility100, such as dropping them immediately. By dropping the source beforeany interaction can initiate, potential threat sources may be thwartedbefore any exchange of data can be made.

In embodiments, information may be sent from the enterprise back to athird party, a vendor, or the like, which may lead to improvedperformance of the threat management facility 100. For example, thetypes, times, and number of virus interactions that a client experiencesmay provide useful information for the preventions of future virusthreats. This type of feedback may be useful for any aspect of threatdetection. Feedback of information may also be associated with behaviorsof individuals within the enterprise, such as being associated with mostcommon violations of policy, network access, unauthorized applicationloading, unauthorized external device use, and the like. In embodiments,this type of information feedback may enable the evaluation or profilingof client actions that are violations of policy that may provide apredictive model for the improvement of enterprise policies.

The security management facility 122 may support overall security of theenterprise facility 102 network or set of enterprise facility 102networks, e.g., by providing updates of malicious code information tothe enterprise facility 102 network and associated client facilities.The updates may include a planned update, an update in reaction to athreat notice, an update in reaction to a request for an update, anupdate based on a search of known malicious code information, or thelike. The administration facility 134 may provide control over thesecurity management facility 122 when updates are performed. The updatesmay be automatically transmitted without an administration facility's134 direct control, manually transmitted by the administration facility134, or otherwise distributed. The security management facility 122 maymanage the receipt of malicious code descriptions from a provider,distribution of the malicious code descriptions to enterprise facility102 networks, distribution of the malicious code descriptions to clientfacilities, and so forth.

The threat management facility 100 may provide a policy managementfacility 112 that may be able to block non-malicious applications, suchas VoIP, instant messaging, peer-to-peer file-sharing, and the like,that may undermine productivity and network performance within theenterprise facility 102. The policy management facility 112 may be a setof rules or policies that may indicate enterprise facility 102 accesspermissions for the client facility, such as access permissionsassociated with the network, applications, external computer devices,and the like. The policy management facility 112 may include a database,a text file, a combination of databases and text files, or the like. Inan embodiment, a policy database may be a block list, a black list, anallowed list, a white list, or the like that may provide a list ofenterprise facility 102 external network locations/applications that mayor may not be accessed by the client facility. The policy managementfacility 112 may include rules that may be interpreted with respect toan enterprise facility 102 network access request to determine if therequest should be allowed. The rules may provide a generic rule for thetype of access that may be granted. The rules may be related to thepolicies of an enterprise facility 102 for access rights for theenterprise facility's 102 client facility. For example, there may be arule that does not permit access to sporting websites. When a website isrequested by the client facility, a security facility may access therules within a policy facility to determine if the requested access isrelated to a sporting website. In an embodiment, the security facilitymay analyze the requested website to determine if the website matcheswith any of the policy facility rules.

The policy management facility 112 may be similar to the securitymanagement facility 122 but with the addition of enterprise facility 102wide access rules and policies that may be distributed to maintaincontrol of client facility access to enterprise facility 102 networkresources. The policies may be defined for application type, subset ofapplication capabilities, organization hierarchy, computer facilitytype, user type, network location, time of day, connection type, or thelike. Policies may be maintained by the administration facility 134,through the threat management facility 100, in association with a thirdparty, or the like. For example, a policy may restrict IM activity toonly support personnel for communicating with customers. This may allowcommunication for departments requiring access, but may maintain thenetwork bandwidth for other activities by restricting the use of IM toonly the personnel that need access to instant messaging (IM) in supportof the enterprise facility 102. In an embodiment, the policy managementfacility 112 may be a stand-alone application, may be part of thenetwork server facility 142, may be part of the enterprise facility 102network, may be part of the client facility, or the like.

The threat management facility 100 may provide configuration management,which may be similar to policy management, but may specifically examinethe configuration set of applications, operating systems, hardware, andthe like, and manage changes to their configurations. Assessment of aconfiguration may be made against a standard configuration policy,detection of configuration changes, remediation of improperconfiguration, application of new configurations, and the like. Anenterprise may keep a set of standard configuration rules and policieswhich may represent the desired state of the device. For example, aclient firewall may be running and installed, but in the disabled state,where remediation may be to enable the firewall. In another example, theenterprise may set a rule that disallows the use of USB disks, and sendsa configuration change to all clients, which turns off USB drive accessvia a registry.

The threat management facility 100 may also provide for the removal ofapplications that potentially interfere with the operation of the threatmanagement facility 100, such as competitor products that may also beattempting similar threat management functions. The removal of suchproducts may be initiated automatically whenever such products aredetected. In the case where such applications are services are providedindirectly through a third-party product, the application may besuspended until action is taken to remove or disable the third-partyproduct's protection facility.

Threat management against a quickly evolving malware environment mayrequire timely updates, and thus an update management facility 120 maybe provided by the threat management facility 100. In addition, a policymanagement facility 112 may also require update management (e.g., asprovided by the update facility 120 herein described). The updatemanagement for the security facility 122 and policy management facility112 may be provided directly by the threat management facility 100, suchas by a hosted system or in conjunction with the administration facility134. In embodiments, the threat management facility 100 may provide forpatch management, where a patch may be an update to an operating system,an application, a system tool, or the like, where one of the reasons forthe patch is to reduce vulnerability to threats.

The security facility 122 and policy management facility 112 may pushinformation to the enterprise facility 102 network and/or clientfacility. The enterprise facility 102 network and/or client facility mayalso or instead pull information from the security facility 122 andpolicy management facility 112 network server facilities 142, or theremay be a combination of pushing and pulling of information between thesecurity facility 122 and the policy management facility 112 networkservers 142, enterprise facility 102 network, and client facilities, orthe like. For example, the enterprise facility 102 network and/or clientfacility may pull information from the security facility 122 and policymanagement facility 112 network server facility 142 may request theinformation using the security facility 122 and policy managementfacility 112 update module; the request may be based on a certain timeperiod, by a certain time, by a date, on demand, or the like. In anotherexample, the security facility 122 and policy management facility 112network servers 142 may push the information to the enterprisefacility's 102 network and/or client facility by providing notificationthat there are updates available for download and then transmitting theinformation. The combination of the security management 122 networkserver facility 142 and security update module may functionsubstantially the same as the policy management facility 112 networkserver and policy update module by providing information to theenterprise facility 102 network and the client facility in a push orpull method. In an embodiment, the policy management facility 112 andthe security facility 122 management update modules may work in concertto provide information to the enterprise facility's 102 network and/orclient facility for control of application execution. In an embodiment,the policy update module and security update module may be combined intoa single update module.

As threats are identified and characterized, the threat managementfacility 100 may create definition updates that may be used to allow thethreat management facility 100 to detect and remediate the latestmalicious software, unwanted applications, configuration and policychanges, and the like. The threat definition facility 114 may containthreat identification updates, also referred to as definition files. Adefinition file may be a virus identity file that may includedefinitions of known or potential malicious code. The virus identity(IDE) definition files may provide information that may identifymalicious code within files, applications, or the like. The definitionfiles may be accessed by security management facility 122 when scanningfiles or applications within the client facility for the determinationof malicious code that may be within the file or application. Thedefinition files may contain a number of commands, definitions, orinstructions, to be parsed and acted upon, or the like. In embodiments,the client facility may be updated with new definition filesperiodically to provide the client facility with the most recentmalicious code definitions; the updating may be performed on a set timeperiod, may be updated on demand from the client facility, may beupdated on demand from the network, may be updated on a receivedmalicious code alert, or the like. In an embodiment, the client facilitymay request an update to the definition files from an update facility120 within the network, may request updated definition files from acomputing facility external to the network, updated definition files maybe provided to the client facility 114 from within the network,definition files may be provided to the client facility from an externalcomputing facility from an external network, or the like.

A definition management facility 114 may provide timely updates ofdefinition files information to the network, client facilities, and thelike. New and altered malicious code and malicious applications may becontinually created and distributed to networks worldwide. Thedefinition files that maintain the definitions of the malicious code andmalicious application information for the protection of the networks andclient facilities may need continual updating to provide continualdefense of the network and client facility from the malicious code andmalicious applications. The definition files management may provide forautomatic and manual methods of updating the definition files. Inembodiments, the network may receive definition files and distribute thedefinition files to the network client facilities, the client facilitiesmay receive the definition files directly, or the network and clientfacilities may both receive the definition files, or the like. In anembodiment, the definition files may be updated on a fixed periodicbasis, on demand by the network and/or the client facility, as a resultof an alert of a new malicious code or malicious application, or thelike. In an embodiment, the definition files may be released as asupplemental file to an existing definition files to provide for rapidupdating of the definition files.

In a similar manner, the security management facility 122 may be used toscan an outgoing file and verify that the outgoing file is permitted tobe transmitted per the enterprise facility 102 rules and policies. Bychecking outgoing files, the security management facility 122 may beable discover malicious code infected files that were not detected asincoming files as a result of the client facility having been updatedwith either new definition files or policy management facility 112information. The definition files may discover the malicious codeinfected file by having received updates of developing malicious codefrom the administration facility 134, updates from a definition filesprovider, or the like. The policy management facility 112 may discoverthe malicious code infected file by having received new updates from theadministration facility 134, from a rules provider, or the like.

The threat management facility 100 may provide controlled access to theenterprise facility 102 networks. For instance, a manager of theenterprise facility 102 may want to restrict access to certainapplications, networks, files, printers, servers, databases, or thelike. In addition, the manager of the enterprise facility 102 may wantto restrict user access based on certain criteria, such as the user'slocation, usage history, need to know, job position, connection type,time of day, method of authentication, client-system configuration, orthe like. Network access rules may be developed for the enterprisefacility 102, or pre-packaged by a supplier, and managed by the threatmanagement facility 100 in conjunction with the administration facility134.

A network access rules facility 124 may be responsible for determiningif a client facility application should be granted access to a requestednetwork location. The network location may be on the same network as thefacility or may be on another network. In an embodiment, the networkaccess rules facility 124 may verify access rights for client facilitiesfrom within the network or may verify access rights of computerfacilities from external networks. When network access for a clientfacility is denied, the network access rules facility 124 may send aninformation file to the client facility containing. For example, theinformation sent by the network access rules facility 124 may be a datafile. The data file may contain a number of commands, definitions,instructions, or the like to be parsed and acted upon through theremedial action facility 128, or the like. The information sent by thenetwork access facility rules facility 124 may be a command or commandfile that the remedial action facility 128 may access and take actionupon.

The network access rules facility 124 may include databases such as ablock list, a black list, an allowed list, a white list, an unacceptablenetwork site database, an acceptable network site database, a networksite reputation database, or the like of network access locations thatmay or may not be accessed by the client facility. Additionally, thenetwork access rules facility 124 may incorporate rule evaluation; therule evaluation may parse network access requests and apply the parsedinformation to network access rules. The network access rule facility124 may have a generic set of rules that may be in support of anenterprise facility's 102 network access policies, such as denyingaccess to certain types of websites, controlling instant messengeraccesses, or the like. Rule evaluation may include regular expressionrule evaluation, or other rule evaluation method for interpreting thenetwork access request and comparing the interpretation to theestablished rules for network access. In an embodiment, the networkaccess rules facility 124 may receive a rules evaluation request fromthe network access control and may return the rules evaluation to thenetwork access control.

Similar to the threat definitions facility 114, the network access rulefacility 124 may provide updated rules and policies to the enterprisefacility 102. The network access rules facility 124 may be maintained bythe network administration facility 134, using network access rulesfacility 124 management. In an embodiment, the network administrationfacility 134 may be able to maintain a set of access rules manually byadding rules, changing rules, deleting rules, or the like. Additionally,the administration facility 134 may retrieve predefined rule sets from aremote provider of a set of rules to be applied to an entire enterprisefacility 102. The network administration facility 134 may be able tomodify the predefined rules as needed for a particular enterprisefacility 102 using the network access rules management facility 124.

When a threat or policy violation is detected by the threat managementfacility 100, the threat management facility 100 may perform or initiatea remedial action facility 128. Remedial action may take a plurality offorms, such as terminating or modifying an ongoing process orinteraction, sending a warning to a client or administration facility134 of an ongoing process or interaction, executing a program orapplication to remediate against a threat or violation, recordinteractions for subsequent evaluation, or the like. Remedial action maybe associated with an application that responds to information that aclient facility network access request has been denied. In anembodiment, when the data file is received, remedial action may parsethe data file, interpret the various aspects of the data file, and acton the parsed data file information to determine actions to be taken onan application requesting access to a denied network location. In anembodiment, when the data file is received, remedial action may accessthe threat definitions to parse the data file and determine an action tobe taken on an application requesting access to a denied networklocation. In an embodiment, the information received from the facilitymay be a command or a command file. The remedial action facility maycarry out any commands that are received or parsed from a data file fromthe facility without performing any interpretation of the commands. Inan embodiment, the remedial action facility may interact with thereceived information and may perform various actions on a clientrequesting access to a denied network location. The action may be one ormore of continuing to block all requests to a denied network location, amalicious code scan on the application, a malicious code scan on theclient facility, quarantine of the application, terminating theapplication, isolation of the application, isolation of the clientfacility to a location within the network that restricts network access,blocking a network access port from a client facility, reporting theapplication to an administration facility 134, or the like.

Remedial action may be provided as a result of a detection of a threator violation. The detection techniques facility 130 may includemonitoring the enterprise facility 102 network or endpoint devices, suchas by monitoring streaming data through the gateway, across the network,through routers and hubs, and the like. The detection techniquesfacility 130 may include monitoring activity and stored files oncomputing facilities, such as on server facilities 142, desktopcomputers, laptop computers, other mobile computing devices, and thelike. Detection techniques, such as scanning a computer's stored files,may provide the capability of checking files for stored threats, eitherin the active or passive state. Detection techniques, such as streamingfile management, may provide the capability of checking files receivedat the network, gateway facility, client facility, and the like. Thismay provide the capability of not allowing a streaming file or portionsof the streaming file containing malicious code from entering the clientfacility, gateway facility, or network. In an embodiment, the streamingfile may be broken into blocks of information, and a plurality of virusidentities may be used to check each of the blocks of information formalicious code. In an embodiment, any blocks that are not determined tobe clear of malicious code may not be delivered to the client facility,gateway facility, or network.

Verifying that the threat management facility 100 is detecting threatsand violations to established policy, may require the ability to testthe system, either at the system level or for a particular computingcomponent. The testing facility 118 may allow the administrationfacility 134 to coordinate the testing of the security configurations ofclient facility computing facilities on a network. The administrationfacility 134 may be able to send test files to a set of client facilitycomputing facilities to test the ability of the client facility todetermine acceptability of the test file. After the test file has beentransmitted, a recording facility may record the actions taken by theclient facility in reaction to the test file. The recording facility mayaggregate the testing information from the client facility and reportthe testing information to the administration facility 134. Theadministration facility 134 may be able to determine the level ofpreparedness of the client facility computing facilities by the reportedinformation. Remedial action may be taken for any of the client facilitycomputing facilities as determined by the administration facility 134;remedial action may be taken by the administration facility 134 or bythe user of the client facility.

The threat research facility 132 may provide a continuously ongoingeffort to maintain the threat protection capabilities of the threatmanagement facility 100 in light of continuous generation of new orevolved forms of malware. Threat research may include researchers andanalysts working on known and emerging malware, such as viruses,rootkits a spyware, as well as other computer threats such as phishing,spam, scams, and the like. In embodiments, through threat research, thethreat management facility 100 may be able to provide swift, globalresponses to the latest threats.

The threat management facility 100 may provide threat protection to theenterprise facility 102, where the enterprise facility 102 may include aplurality of networked components, such as client facility, serverfacility 142, administration facility 134, firewall 138, gateway, hubsand routers 148, threat management appliance 140, desktop users, mobileusers, and the like. In embodiments, it may be the endpoint computersecurity facility 152, located on a computer's desktop, which mayprovide threat protection to a user, and associated enterprise facility102. In embodiments, the term endpoint may refer to a computer systemthat may source data, receive data, evaluate data, buffer data, or thelike (such as a user's desktop computer as an endpoint computer), afirewall as a data evaluation endpoint computer system, a laptop as amobile endpoint computer, a personal digital assistant or tablet as ahand-held endpoint computer, a mobile phone as an endpoint computer, orthe like. In embodiments, endpoint may refer to a source or destinationfor data, including such components where the destination ischaracterized by an evaluation point for data, and where the data may besent to a subsequent destination after evaluation. The endpoint computersecurity facility 152 may be an application loaded onto the computerplatform or computer support component, where the application mayaccommodate the plurality of computer platforms and/or functionalrequirements of the component. For instance, a client facility computermay be one of a plurality of computer platforms, such as Windows,Macintosh, Linux, and the like, where the endpoint computer securityfacility 152 may be adapted to the specific platform, while maintaininga uniform product and product services across platforms. Additionally,components may have different functions to serve within the enterprisefacility's 102 networked computer-based infrastructure. For instance,computer support components provided as hubs and routers 148, serverfacility 142, firewalls 138, and the like, may require unique securityapplication software to protect their portion of the systeminfrastructure, while providing an element in an integrated threatmanagement system that extends out beyond the threat management facility100 to incorporate all computer resources under its protection.

The enterprise facility 102 may include a plurality of client facilitycomputing platforms on which the endpoint computer security facility 152is adapted. A client facility computing platform may be a computersystem that is able to access a service on another computer, such as aserver facility 142, via a network. This client facility server facility142 model may apply to a plurality of networked applications, such as aclient facility connecting to an enterprise facility 102 applicationserver facility 142, a web browser client facility connecting to a webserver facility 142, an e-mail client facility retrieving e-mail from anInternet 154 service provider's mail storage servers 142, and the like.In embodiments, traditional large client facility applications may beswitched to websites, which may increase the browser's role as a clientfacility. Clients 144 may be classified as a function of the extent towhich they perform their own processing. For instance, client facilitiesare sometimes classified as a fat client facility or thin clientfacility. The fat client facility, also known as a thick client facilityor rich client facility, may be a client facility that performs the bulkof data processing operations itself, and does not necessarily rely onthe server facility 142. The fat client facility may be most common inthe form of a personal computer, where the personal computer may operateindependent of any server facility 142. Programming environments for fatclients 144 may include CURT, Delphi, Droplets, Java, win32, X11, andthe like. Thin clients 144 may offer minimal processing capabilities,for instance, the thin client facility may primarily provide a graphicaluser interface provided by an application server facility 142, which mayperform the bulk of any required data processing. Programmingenvironments for thin clients 144 may include JavaScript/AJAX, ASP, JSP,Ruby on Rails, Python's Django, PHP, and the like. The client facilitymay also be a mix of the two, such as processing data locally, butrelying on a server facility 142 for data storage. As a result, thishybrid client facility may provide benefits from both the fat clientfacility type, such as multimedia support and high performance, and thethin client facility type, such as high manageability and flexibility.In embodiments, the threat management facility 100, and associatedendpoint computer security facility 152, may provide seamless threatprotection to the plurality of clients 144, and client facility types,across the enterprise facility 102.

The enterprise facility 102 may include a plurality of server facilities142, such as application servers, communications servers, file servers,database servers, proxy servers, mail servers, fax servers, gameservers, web servers, and the like. A server facility 142, which mayalso be referred to as a server facility 142 application, serverfacility 142 operating system, server facility 142 computer, or thelike, may be an application program or operating system that acceptsclient facility connections in order to service requests from clients144. The server facility 142 application may run on the same computer asthe client facility using it, or the server facility 142 and the clientfacility may be running on different computers and communicating acrossthe network. Server facility 142 applications may be divided amongserver facility 142 computers, with the dividing depending upon theworkload. For instance, under light load conditions all server facility142 applications may run on a single computer and under heavy loadconditions a single server facility 142 application may run on multiplecomputers. In embodiments, the threat management facility 100 mayprovide threat protection to server facilities 142 within the enterprisefacility 102 as load conditions and application changes are made.

A server facility 142 may also be an appliance facility 140, where theappliance facility 140 provides specific services onto the network.Though the appliance facility 140 is a server facility 142 computer,that may be loaded with a server facility 142 operating system andserver facility 142 application, the enterprise facility 102 user maynot need to configure it, as the configuration may have been performedby a third party. In an embodiment, an enterprise facility 102 appliancemay be a server facility 142 appliance that has been configured andadapted for use with the threat management facility 100, and locatedwithin the facilities of the enterprise facility 102. The enterprisefacility's 102 threat management appliance may enable the enterprisefacility 102 to administer an on-site local managed threat protectionconfiguration, where the administration facility 134 may access thethreat resources through an interface, such as a web portal. In analternate embodiment, the enterprise facility 102 may be managedremotely from a third party, vendor, or the like, without an appliancefacility 140 located within the enterprise facility 102. In thisinstance, the appliance functionality may be a shared hardware productbetween pluralities of enterprises 102. In embodiments, the appliancefacility 140 may be located at the enterprise facility 102, where theenterprise facility 102 maintains a degree of control. In embodiments, ahosted service may be provided, where the appliance 140 may still be anon-site black box to the enterprise facility 102, physically placedthere because of infrastructure requirements, but managed by a thirdparty, vendor, or the like.

Simple server facility 142 appliances may also be utilized across theenterprise facility's 102 network infrastructure, such as switches,routers, wireless routers, hubs and routers, gateways, print servers,net modems, and the like. These simple server facility appliances maynot require configuration by the enterprise facility 102, but mayrequire protection from threats via an endpoint computer securityfacility 152. These appliances may provide interconnection serviceswithin the enterprise facility 102 network, and therefore may advancethe spread of a threat if not properly protected.

A client facility may be protected from threats from within theenterprise facility 102 network using a personal firewall, which may bea hardware firewall, software firewall, or combination of these, thatcontrols network traffic to and from a client. The personal firewall maypermit or deny communications based on a security policy. Personalfirewalls may be designed for use by end-users, which may result inprotection for only the computer on which it's installed. Personalfirewalls may be able to control network traffic by providing promptseach time a connection is attempted and adapting security policyaccordingly. Personal firewalls may also provide some level of intrusiondetection, which may allow the software to terminate or blockconnectivity where it suspects an intrusion is being attempted. Otherfeatures that may be provided by a personal firewall may include alertsabout outgoing connection attempts, control of program access tonetworks, hiding the client from port scans by not responding tounsolicited network traffic, monitoring of applications that may belistening for incoming connections, monitoring and regulation ofincoming and outgoing network traffic, prevention of unwanted networktraffic from installed applications, reporting applications that makeconnection attempts, reporting destination servers with whichapplications may be attempting communications, and the like. Inembodiments, the personal firewall may be provided by the threatmanagement facility 100.

Another important component that may be protected by an endpointcomputer security facility 152 is a network firewall facility 138, whichmay be a hardware or software device that may be configured to permit,deny, or proxy data through a computer network that has different levelsof trust in its source of data. For instance, an internal enterprisefacility 102 network may have a high level of trust, because the sourceof all data has been sourced from within the enterprise facility 102. Anexample of a low level of trust is the Internet 154, because the sourceof data may be unknown. A zone with an intermediate trust level,situated between the Internet 154 and a trusted internal network, may bereferred to as a “perimeter network.” Since firewall facilities 138represent boundaries between threat levels, the endpoint computersecurity facility 152 associated with the firewall facility 138 mayprovide resources that may control the flow of threats at thisenterprise facility 102 network entry point. Firewall facilities 138,and associated endpoint computer security facility 152, may also beassociated with a network node that may be equipped for interfacingbetween networks that use different protocols. In embodiments, theendpoint computer security facility 152 may provide threat protection ina plurality of network infrastructure locations, such as at theenterprise facility 102 network entry point, i.e. the firewall facility138 or gateway; at the server facility 142; at distribution pointswithin the network, i.e. the hubs and routers 148; at the desktop ofclient facility computers; and the like. In embodiments, the mosteffective location for threat detection may be at the user's computerdesktop endpoint computer security facility 152.

The interface between the threat management facility 100 and theenterprise facility 102, and through the appliance facility 140 toembedded endpoint computer security facilities, may include a set oftools that may be the same for all enterprise implementations, but alloweach enterprise to implement different controls. In embodiments, thesecontrols may include both automatic actions and managed actions.Automatic actions may include downloads of the endpoint computersecurity facility 152 to components of the enterprise facility 102,downloads of updates to existing endpoint computer security facilitiesof the enterprise facility 102, uploaded network interaction requestsfrom enterprise facility 102 components to the threat managementfacility 100, and the like. In embodiments, automatic interactionsbetween the enterprise facility 102 and the threat management facility100 may be configured by the threat management facility 100 and anadministration facility 134 in the enterprise facility 102. Theadministration facility 134 may configure policy rules that determineinteractions, such as developing rules for accessing applications, as inwho is authorized and when applications may be used; establishing rulesfor ethical behavior and activities; rules governing the use ofentertainment software such as games, or personal use software such asIM and VoIP; rules for determining access to enterprise facility 102computing resources, including authentication, levels of access, riskassessment, and usage history tracking; rules for when an action is notallowed, such as whether an action is completely deigned or justmodified in its execution; and the like. The administration facility 134may also establish license management, which in turn may furtherdetermine interactions associated with a licensed application. Inembodiments, interactions between the threat management facility 100 andthe enterprise facility 102 may provide threat protection to theenterprise facility 102 by managing the flow of network data into andout of the enterprise facility 102 through automatic actions that may beconfigured by the threat management facility 100 or the administrationfacility 134.

Client facilities within the enterprise facility 102 may be connected tothe enterprise facility 102 network by way of wired network facilities148A or wireless network facilities 148B. Client facilities connected tothe enterprise facility 102 network via a wired facility 148A orwireless facility 148B may receive similar protection, as bothconnection types are ultimately connected to the same enterprisefacility 102 network, with the same endpoint computer security facility152, and the same threat protected enterprise facility 102 environment.Mobile wireless facility clients 144B-F, because of their ability toconnect to any wireless 148B,D network access point, may connect to theInternet 154 outside the enterprise facility 102, and therefore outsidethe threat-protected environment of the enterprise facility 102. In thisinstance the mobile client facility (e.g., the clients 144 B-F), if notfor the presence of the endpoint computer security facility 152 mayexperience a malware attack or perform actions counter to enterprisefacility 102 established policies. In addition, there may be a pluralityof ways for the threat management facility 100 to protect theout-of-enterprise facility 102 mobile client facility (e.g., the clients144 D-F) that has an embedded endpoint computer security facility 152,such as by providing URI filtering in personal routers, using a webappliance as a DNS proxy, or the like. Mobile client facilities that arecomponents of the enterprise facility 102 but temporarily outsideconnectivity with the enterprise facility 102 network may be providedwith the same threat protection and policy control as client facilitiesinside the enterprise facility 102. In addition, mobile the clientfacilities may receive the same interactions to and from the threatmanagement facility 100 as client facilities inside the enterprisefacility 102, where the mobile client facilities may be considered avirtual extension of the enterprise facility 102, receiving all the sameservices via their embedded endpoint computer security facility 152.

Interactions between the threat management facility 100 and thecomponents of the enterprise facility 102, including mobile clientfacility extensions of the enterprise facility 102, may ultimately beconnected through the Internet 154. Threat management facility 100downloads and upgrades to the enterprise facility 102 may be passed fromthe firewalled networks of the threat management facility 100 through tothe endpoint computer security facility 152 equipped components of theenterprise facility 102. In turn the endpoint computer security facility152 components of the enterprise facility 102 may upload policy andaccess requests back across the Internet 154 and through to the threatmanagement facility 100. The Internet 154 however, is also the paththrough which threats may be transmitted from their source. Thesenetwork threats 104 may include threats from a plurality of sources,including without limitation, websites, e-mail, IM, VoIP, applicationsoftware, and the like. These threats may attempt to attack a mobileenterprise client facility (e.g., the clients 144B-F) equipped with anendpoint computer security facility 152, but in embodiments, as long asthe mobile client facility is embedded with an endpoint computersecurity facility 152, as described above, threats may have no bettersuccess than if the mobile client facility were inside the enterprisefacility 102.

However, if the mobile client facility were to attempt to connect intoan unprotected connection point, such as at a secondary location 108that is not a part of the enterprise facility 102, the mobile clientfacility may be required to request network interactions through thethreat management facility 100, where contacting the threat managementfacility 100 may be performed prior to any other network action. Inembodiments, the client facility's 144 endpoint computer securityfacility 152 may manage actions in unprotected network environments suchas when the client facility (e.g., client 144F) is in a secondarylocation 108 or connecting wirelessly to a non-enterprise facility 102wireless Internet connection, where the endpoint computer securityfacility 152 may dictate what actions are allowed, blocked, modified, orthe like. For instance, if the client facility's 144 endpoint computersecurity facility 152 is unable to establish a secured connection to thethreat management facility 100, the endpoint computer security facility152 may inform the user of such, and recommend that the connection notbe made. In the instance when the user chooses to connect despite therecommendation, the endpoint computer security facility 152 may performspecific actions during or after the unprotected connection is made,including running scans during the connection period, running scansafter the connection is terminated, storing interactions for subsequentthreat and policy evaluation, contacting the threat management facility100 upon first instance of a secured connection for further actions andor scanning, restricting access to network and local resources, or thelike. In embodiments, the endpoint computer security facility 152 mayperform specific actions to remediate possible threat incursions orpolicy violations during or after the unprotected connection.

The secondary location 108 may have no endpoint computer securityfacilities 152 as a part of its computer components, such as itsfirewalls 138B, servers 142B, clients 144G, hubs and routers 148C-D, andthe like. As a result, the computer components of the secondary location108 may be open to threat attacks, and become potential sources ofthreats, as well as any mobile enterprise facility clients 144B-F thatmay be connected to the secondary location's 108 network. In thisinstance, these computer components may now unknowingly spread a threatto other components connected to the network.

Some threats may not come directly from the Internet 154, such as fromnon-enterprise facility controlled mobile devices that are physicallybrought into the enterprise facility 102 and connected to the enterprisefacility 102 client facilities. The connection may be made from directconnection with the enterprise facility's 102 client facility, such asthrough a USB port, or in physical proximity with the enterprisefacility's 102 client facility such that a wireless facility connectioncan be established, such as through a Bluetooth connection. Thesephysical proximity threats 110 may be another mobile computing device, aportable memory storage device, a mobile communications device, or thelike, such as CDs and DVDs, memory sticks, flash drives, external harddrives, cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, digital cameras, point-to-pointdevices, digital picture frames, digital pens, navigation devices,tablets, appliances, and the like. A physical proximity threat 110 mayhave been previously infiltrated by network threats while connected toan unprotected network connection outside the enterprise facility 102,and when connected to the enterprise facility 102 client facility, posea threat. Because of their mobile nature, physical proximity threats 110may infiltrate computing resources in any location, such as beingphysically brought into the enterprise facility 102 site, connected toan enterprise facility 102 client facility while that client facility ismobile, plugged into an unprotected client facility at a secondarylocation 108, and the like. A mobile device, once connected to anunprotected computer resource, may become a physical proximity threat110. In embodiments, the endpoint computer security facility 152 mayprovide enterprise facility 102 computing resources with threatprotection against physical proximity threats 110, for instance, throughscanning the device prior to allowing data transfers, through securityvalidation certificates, through establishing a safe zone within theenterprise facility 102 computing resource to transfer data into forevaluation, and the like.

Having provided an overall context for threat detection, the descriptionnow turns to a brief discussion of an example of a computer system thatmay be used for any of the entities and facilities described above.

FIG. 2 illustrates a computer system. In general, the computer system200 may include a computing device 210 connected to a network 202, e.g.,through an external device 204. The computing device 210 may be orinclude any type of network endpoint or endpoints as described herein,e.g., with reference to FIG. 1 above. For example, the computing device210 may include a desktop computer workstation. The computing device 210may also or instead be any suitable device that has processes andcommunicates over a network 202, including without limitation a laptopcomputer, a desktop computer, a personal digital assistant, a tablet, amobile phone, a television, a set top box, a wearable computer (e.g.,watch, jewelry, or clothing), a home device (e.g., a thermostat or ahome appliance controller), just as some examples. The computing device210 may also or instead include a server, or it may be disposed on aserver.

The computing device 210 may be used for any of the entities describedin the threat management environment described above with reference toFIG. 1. For example, the computing device 210 may be a server, a clientan enterprise facility, a threat management facility, or any of theother facilities or computing devices described therein. In certainaspects, the computing device 210 may be implemented using hardware(e.g., in a desktop computer), software (e.g., in a virtual machine orthe like), or a combination of software and hardware (e.g., withprograms executing on the desktop computer), and the computing device210 may be a standalone device, a device integrated into another entityor device, a platform distributed across multiple entities, or avirtualized device executing in a virtualization environment.

The network 202 may include any network described above, e.g., datanetwork(s) or internetwork(s) suitable for communicating data andcontrol information among participants in the computer system 200. Thismay include public networks such as the Internet, private networks, andtelecommunications networks such as the Public Switched TelephoneNetwork or cellular networks using third generation cellular technology(e.g., 3G or IMT-2000), fourth generation cellular technology (e.g., 4G,LTE. MT-Advanced, E-UTRA, etc.) or WiMax-Advanced (IEEE 802.16m)) and/orother technologies, as well as any of a variety of corporate area,metropolitan area, campus or other local area networks or enterprisenetworks, along with any switches, routers, hubs, gateways, and the likethat might be used to carry data among participants in the computersystem 200. The network 202 may also include a combination of datanetworks, and need not be limited to a strictly public or privatenetwork.

The external device 204 may be any computer or other remote resourcethat connects to the computing device 210 through the network 202. Thismay include threat management resources such as any of thosecontemplated above, gateways or other network devices, remote servers orthe like containing content requested by the computing device 210, anetwork storage device or resource, a device hosting malicious content,or any other resource or device that might connect to the computingdevice 210 through the network 202.

The computing device 210 may include a processor 212, a memory 214, anetwork interface 216, a data store 218, and one or more input/outputdevices 220. The computing device 210 may further include or be incommunication with peripherals 222 and other external input/outputdevices 224.

The processor 212 may be any as described herein, and in general becapable of processing instructions for execution within the computingdevice 210 or computer system 200. The processor 212 may include asingle-threaded processor or a multi-threaded processor. The processor212 may be capable of processing instructions stored in the memory 214or on the data store 218.

The memory 214 may store information within the computing device 210 orcomputer system 200. The memory 214 may include any volatile ornon-volatile memory or other computer-readable medium, including withoutlimitation a Random-Access Memory (RAM), a flash memory, a Read OnlyMemory (ROM), a Programmable Read-only Memory (PROM), an Erasable PROM(EPROM), registers, and so forth. The memory 214 may store programinstructions, program data, executables, and other software and datauseful for controlling operation of the computing device 200 andconfiguring the computing device 200 to perform functions for a user.The memory 214 may include a number of different stages and types fordifferent aspects of operation of the computing device 210. For example,a processor may include on-board memory and/or cache for faster accessto certain data or instructions, and a separate, main memory or the likemay be included to expand memory capacity as desired.

The memory 214 may, in general, include a non-volatile computer readablemedium containing computer code that, when executed by the computingdevice 200 creates an execution environment for a computer program inquestion, e.g., code that constitutes processor firmware, a protocolstack, a database management system, an operating system, or acombination of the foregoing, and/or code that performs some or all ofthe steps set forth in the various flow charts and other algorithmicdescriptions set forth herein. While a single memory 214 is depicted, itwill be understood that any number of memories may be usefullyincorporated into the computing device 210. For example, a first memorymay provide non-volatile storage such as a disk drive for permanent orlong-term storage of files and code even when the computing device 210is powered down. A second memory such as a random-access memory mayprovide volatile (but higher speed) memory for storing instructions anddata for executing processes. A third memory may be used to improveperformance by providing even higher speed memory physically adjacent tothe processor 212 for registers, caching and so forth.

The network interface 216 may include any hardware and/or software forconnecting the computing device 210 in a communicating relationship withother resources through the network 202. This may include remoteresources accessible through the Internet, as well as local resourcesavailable using short range communications protocols using, e.g.,physical connections (e.g., Ethernet), radio frequency communications(e.g., WiFi), optical communications, (e.g., fiber optics, infrared, orthe like), ultrasonic communications, or any combination of these orother media that might be used to carry data between the computingdevice 210 and other devices. The network interface 216 may, forexample, include a router, a modem, a network card, an infraredtransceiver, a radio frequency (RF) transceiver, a near fieldcommunications interface, a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tagreader, or any other data reading or writing resource or the like.

More generally, the network interface 216 may include any combination ofhardware and software suitable for coupling the components of thecomputing device 210 to other computing or communications resources. Byway of example and not limitation, this may include electronics for awired or wireless Ethernet connection operating according to the IEEE802.11 standard (or any variation thereof), or any other short or longrange wireless networking components or the like. This may includehardware for short range data communications such as Bluetooth or aninfrared transceiver, which may be used to couple to other localdevices, or to connect to a local area network or the like that is inturn coupled to a data network 202 such as the Internet. This may alsoor instead include hardware/software for a WiMax connection or acellular network connection (using, e.g., CDMA, GSM, LTE, or any othersuitable protocol or combination of protocols). The network interface216 may be included as part of the input/output devices 220 orvice-versa.

The data store 218 may be any internal memory store providing acomputer-readable medium such as a disk drive, an optical drive, amagnetic drive, a flash drive, or other device capable of providing massstorage for the computing device 210. The data store 218 may storecomputer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, andother data for the computing device 210 or computer system 200 in anon-volatile form for subsequent retrieval and use. For example, thedata store 218 may store without limitation one or more of the operatingsystem, application programs, program data, databases, files, and otherprogram modules or other software objects and the like.

The input/output interface 220 may support input from and output toother devices that might couple to the computing device 210. This may,for example, include serial ports (e.g., RS-232 ports), universal serialbus (USB) ports, optical ports, Ethernet ports, telephone ports, audiojacks, component audio/video inputs, HDMI ports, and so forth, any ofwhich might be used to form wired connections to other local devices.This may also or instead include an infrared interface, RF interface,magnetic card reader, or other input/output system for coupling in acommunicating relationship with other local devices. It will beunderstood that, while the network interface 216 for networkcommunications is described separately from the input/output interface220 for local device communications, these two interfaces may be thesame, or may share functionality, such as where a USB port is used toattach to a WiFi accessory, or where an Ethernet connection is used tocouple to a local network attached storage.

A peripheral 222 may include any device used to provide information toor receive information from the computing device 200. This may includehuman input/output (I/O) devices such as a keyboard, a mouse, a mousepad, a track ball, a joystick, a microphone, a foot pedal, a camera, atouch screen, a scanner, or other device that might be employed by theuser 230 to provide input to the computing device 210. This may also orinstead include a display, a speaker, a printer, a projector, a headsetor any other audiovisual device for presenting information to a user.The peripheral 222 may also or instead include a digital signalprocessing device, an actuator, or other device to support control orcommunication to other devices or components. Other I/O devices suitablefor use as a peripheral 222 include haptic devices, three-dimensionalrendering systems, augmented-reality displays, magnetic card readers,and so forth. In one aspect, the peripheral 222 may serve as the networkinterface 216, such as with a USB device configured to providecommunications via short range (e.g., Bluetooth, WiFi, Infrared, RF, orthe like) or long range (e.g., cellular data or WiMax) communicationsprotocols. In another aspect, the peripheral 222 may provide a device toaugment operation of the computing device 210, such as a globalpositioning system (GPS) device, a security dongle, or the like. Inanother aspect, the peripheral may be a storage device such as a flashcard, USB drive, or other solid-state device, or an optical drive, amagnetic drive, a disk drive, or other device or combination of devicessuitable for bulk storage. More generally, any device or combination ofdevices suitable for use with the computing device 200 may be used as aperipheral 222 as contemplated herein.

Other hardware 226 may be incorporated into the computing device 200such as a co-processor, a digital signal processing system, a mathco-processor, a graphics engine, a video driver, and so forth. The otherhardware 226 may also or instead include expanded input/output ports,extra memory, additional drives (e.g., a DVD drive or other accessory),and so forth.

A bus 232 or combination of busses may serve as an electromechanicalplatform for interconnecting components of the computing device 200 suchas the processor 212, memory 214, network interface 216, other hardware226, data store 218, and input/output interface. As shown in the figure,each of the components of the computing device 210 may be interconnectedusing a system bus 232 or other communication mechanism forcommunicating information.

Methods and systems described herein can be realized using the processor212 of the computer system 200 to execute one or more sequences ofinstructions contained in the memory 214 to perform predetermined tasks.In embodiments, the computing device 200 may be deployed as a number ofparallel processors synchronized to execute code together for improvedperformance, or the computing device 200 may be realized in avirtualized environment where software on a hypervisor or othervirtualization management facility emulates components of the computingdevice 200 as appropriate to reproduce some or all of the functions of ahardware instantiation of the computing device 200.

FIG. 3 illustrates a threat management system according to someimplementations. In general, the system 300 may include an endpoint 302,a firewall 304, a server 306 and a threat management facility 308coupled to one another directly or indirectly through a data network305, all as generally described above. Each of the entities depicted inFIG. 3 may, for example, be implemented on one or more computing devicessuch as the computing device described above with reference to FIG. 2. Anumber of systems may be distributed across these various components tosupport threat detection, such as a coloring system 310, a keymanagement system 312 and a heartbeat system 314 (or otherwise anendpoint health system), each of which may include software componentsexecuting on any of the foregoing system components, and each of whichmay communicate with the threat management facility 308 and an endpointthreat detection agent 320 executing on the endpoint 302 to supportimproved threat detection and remediation.

The coloring system 310 may be used to label or ‘color’ software objectsfor improved tracking and detection of potentially harmful activity. Thecoloring system 310 may, for example, label files, executables,processes, network communications, data sources and so forth with anysuitable label. A variety of techniques may be used to select staticand/or dynamic labels for any of these various software objects, and tomanage the mechanics of applying and propagating coloring information asappropriate. For example, a process may inherit a color from anapplication that launches the process. Similarly, a file may inherit acolor from a process when it is created or opened by a process, and/or aprocess may inherit a color from a file that the process has opened.More generally, any type of labeling, as well as rules for propagating,inheriting, changing, or otherwise manipulating such labels, may be usedby the coloring system 310 as contemplated herein. A suitable coloringsystem is described in greater detail below with reference to FIG. 4.

The key management system 312 may support management of keys for theendpoint 302 in order to selectively permit or prevent access to contenton the endpoint 302 on a file-specific basis, a process-specific basis,an application-specific basis, a user-specific basis, or any othersuitable basis in order to prevent data leakage, and in order to supportmore fine-grained and immediate control over access to content on theendpoint 302 when a security compromise is detected. Thus, for example,if a particular process executing on the endpoint is compromised, orpotentially compromised or otherwise under suspicion, access by thatprocess may be blocked (e.g., with access to keys revoked) in order toprevent, e.g., data leakage or other malicious activity. A suitable keymanagement system useful in this context is described in greater detailbelow with reference to FIG. 5.

The heartbeat system 314 may be used to provide periodic or aperiodicinformation from the endpoint 302 or other system components aboutsystem health, security, status, and so forth. The heartbeat system 314or otherwise an endpoint health system may thus in general include ahealth status report system for the endpoint 302, such as through theuse of a heartbeat system or the like. A heartbeat may be encrypted orplaintext, or some combination of these, and may be communicatedunidirectionally (e.g., from the endpoint 308 to the threat managementfacility 308) or bidirectionally (e.g., between the endpoint 302 and theserver 306, or any other pair of system components) on any usefulschedule. A suitable heartbeat system that can be used as part of theendpoint health system is described in greater detail below withreference to FIG. 6.

In general, these various monitoring and management systems maycooperate to provide improved threat detection and response. Forexample, the coloring system 310 may be used to evaluate when aparticular process is potentially opening inappropriate files, and apotential threat may be confirmed based on an interrupted heartbeat fromthe heartbeat system 314. The key management system 312 may then bedeployed to revoke access by the process to certain resources (e.g.,keys or file) so that no further files can be opened, deleted orotherwise modified. More generally, the cooperation of these systemsenables a wide variety of reactive measures that can improve detectionand remediation of potential threats to an endpoint.

FIG. 4 illustrates a system for behavioral tracking, coloring, andgeneration of indications of compromise (IOCs). In general, the system400 may include a number of entities participating in a threatmanagement process such as any of the entities and threat managementprocesses described herein. The threat management process may forexample employ techniques such as behavioral tracking, encryption,endpoint recording, reputation-based threat detection, behavioral-basedthreat detection, signature-based threat detection, and combinations ofthe foregoing, or any other suitable techniques for detecting threats toendpoints in an enterprise.

In general, the system 400 may include a number of endpoints 402, 412and a threat management facility 404 in an enterprise 410, such as anyof the enterprises described herein. An external analysis facility 406may analyze threat data and provide rules and the like for use by thethreat management facility 404 and endpoints 402, 412 in managingthreats to the enterprise 410. The threat management facility 404 mayreside locally (e.g., a part of, embedded within, or locally coupled tothe endpoint 402), a virtual appliance (e.g., which could be run by aprotected set of systems on their own network system(s)), a privatecloud, a public cloud, and so forth. The analysis facility 406 may storelocally-derived threat information. The analysis facility 406 may alsoor instead receive threat information from a third-party source 416 suchas MITRE Corporation or any other public, private, educational or otherorganization that gathers information on network threats and providesanalysis and threat detection information for use by others. Each ofthese components may be configured with suitable programming toparticipate in the various threat detection and management techniquescontemplated herein. The threat management facility 404 may monitor anystream of data from an endpoint 402 exclusively, or use the full contextof intelligence from the stream of all protected endpoints 402, 412 orsome combination of these.

The endpoint 402 may be any of the endpoints described herein, or anyother device or network asset that might join or participate in theenterprise 410 or otherwise operate on an enterprise network. This may,for example, include a server, a client such as a desktop computer or amobile computing device (e.g., a laptop computer, a wearable device, atablet, and the like), a cellular phone, a smart phone, or othercomputing device suitable for participating in the enterprise 410.

In general, the endpoint 402 may include any number of computing objectssuch as an object 418 labeled with a descriptor 420. While the termobject has a number of specific meanings in the art, and in particularin object-oriented programming, it will be understood that the term‘object’ as used herein is intended to be significantly broader, and mayinclude any data, process, file or combination of these includingwithout limitation any process, application, executable, script, dynamiclinked library, file, data, database, data source, data structure,function, resource locator (e.g., uniform resource locator (URL) orother uniform resource identifier (URI)), or the like that might bemanipulated by one of the computing devices described herein.

An object 418 may also or instead include a remote resource, such as aresource identified in a URL. That is, while the objects 418 in FIG. 4are depicted as residing on the endpoint 402, an object 418 may alsoreside elsewhere in the system 400, while still being labeled with adescriptor 420 and tracked by the monitor 421 of the endpoint 402. Theobject 418 may be an item that is performing an action or causing anevent, or the object 418 may be an item that is receiving the action orresult of an event (i.e., the item in the system 400 being acted upon).

Where the object 418 is data or includes data, the object 418 may beencrypted or otherwise protected, or the object 418 may be unencryptedor otherwise unprotected. The object 418 may be a process or othercomputing object that performs an action, which may include a singleevent or a collection or sequence of events taken by a process. Theobject 418 may also or instead include an item such as a file or linesof code that are executable to perform such actions. The object 418 mayalso or instead include a computing component upon which an action istaken, e.g., a system setting (e.g., a registry key or the like), a datafile, a URL, or the like. The object 418 may exhibit a behavior such asan interaction with another object or component of the system 400.

In one aspect, objects 418 may be described in terms of persistence. Theobject 418 may, for example, be a part of a process, and remainpersistent as long as that process is alive. The object 418 may insteadbe persistent across an endpoint 402 and remain persistent as long as anendpoint 402 is active or alive. The object 418 may instead be a globalobject having persistence outside of an endpoint 418, such as a URL or adata store. In other words, the object 418 may be a persistent objectwith persistence outside of the endpoint.

Although many if not most objects 418 will typically be benign objectsforming a part of a normal, operating endpoint, an object 418 maycontain software associated with an advanced persistent threat (APT) orother malware that resides partially or entirely on the endpoint 402.The associated software may have reached the endpoint 402 in a varietyof ways, and may have been placed manually or automatically on theendpoint 402 by a malicious source. It will be understood that theassociated software may take any number of forms and have any number ofcomponents. For example, the associated software may include anexecutable file that can execute independently, or the associatedsoftware may be a macro, plug-in, or the like that executes withinanother application. Similarly, the associated software may manifest asone or more processes or threads executing on the endpoint 402. Further,the associated software may install from a file on the endpoint 402 (ora file remote from the endpoint 402), and the associated software maycreate one or more files such as data files or the like while executing.Associated software should be understood to generally include all suchfiles and processes except where a specific file or process is morespecifically noted.

A threat such as an APT may also take the form of an attack where noaltered or additional software is directly added or modified on theendpoint 402. Instead, an adversary may reuse existing software on thesystem 400 to perform the attacks. It is for this reason that simplyscanning for associated software may be insufficient for the detectionof APTs and it may be preferable to detect APTs based on the behavior ofthe software and associated objects 418 that are used by, for, and withthat software.

An object coloring system 414 may apply descriptors 420 to objects 418on the endpoint 402. This may be performed continuously by a backgroundprocess on the endpoint 402, or it may occur whenever an object 418 isinvolved in an action, such as when a process makes a call to anapplication programming interface (API) or takes some other action, orwhen a URL is used to initiate a network request, or when a read or awrite is performed on data in a file. This may also or instead include acombination of these approaches as well as other approaches, such as bypre-labeling a file or application when it is moved to the endpoint 402,or when the endpoint 402 is started up or instantiated. In general, theobject coloring system 414 may add, remove or change a color at anylocation and at any moment that can be practicably instrumented on acomputer system.

As noted above, the term ‘object’ as used herein is intended to includea wide range of computing objects and as such, the manner in whichparticular objects 418 are labeled or ‘colored’ with descriptors 420 mayvary significantly. Any object 418 that is performing an action may becolored at the time of and/or with a label corresponding to the action,or likewise any object 418 that is the target of the action may becolored at the time that it is used and/or with a label corresponding toa process or the like using the object 418. Furthermore, the operatingsystem runtime representation of the object 418 may be colored, or thepersistent object outside of the operating system may be colored (as isthe case for a File Handle or File Object within the operating system orthe actual file as stored in a file system), such as within anencryption header or other header applied to the file, or as part of adirectory attribute or any other persistent location within the file orfile system. A former coloring may be ephemerally tracked while theoperating system maintains the representation and the latter may persistlong after any reboots of the same operating system and likewise havemeaning when read or used by other endpoints 402. For processes, eachfile handle may be supplemented with a pointer or other mechanism forlocating a descriptor 420 for a particular object 420 that is a process.More specifically, each object 418 may be colored in any manner suitablefor appending information to that object 418 so that the correspondingdescriptor 420 can be retrieved and, where appropriate, updated.

The coloring system 414 may apply any suitable rules for adding andchanging descriptors 420 for objects 418. For example, when a processwith a certain descriptor accesses data with a different descriptor, thedescriptor for the process may be updated to correspond to the data, orthe descriptor for the data may be updated to correspond to the process,or some combination of these. Any action by or upon an object 418 maytrigger a coloring rule so that descriptors 420 can be revised at anyrelevant time(s) during processing.

In one aspect, colors will not explicitly indicate a compromisedsecurity state or other good/bad types of distinctions (although theymay be adapted to this use). Instead, colors may record some knowninformation or understanding about an object 418, such as a source, apurpose, and so forth. In this context, colors will not be used to labelactual or potential security compromises, but to identifyinconsistencies among interacting objects 418, and to restrict orcontrol access and use accordingly. For example, where an endpoint usesfile-system-based encryption as described herein, a process that iscolored as exposed to external resources (e.g., the Internet) may beprohibited from accessing cleartext data for protected files. Colors canalso be used in other contexts such as intrusion prevention, routingrules, and detection of odd or questionable behavior.

In one aspect, colors may be implemented as flags associated withobjects 418 that provide a short hand cache of potentially relevantinformation. While this information could also be obtained for an object418 through a careful inspection of related activity logs or other datarecording activities, the use of a cache of flags for coloringinformation makes the coloring information directly available andimmediately actionable, as distinguished from post hoc forensicactivities that are otherwise supported by data logging.

In one aspect, colors as contemplated herein may fall into two differentcategories: static colors and dynamic colors. Static colors may beexplicitly applied based on, e.g., a controlling application. Forexample, a static color may specify a status of an application or data,or an associated type of application (e.g., productivity, mail client,messaging, browser, word processing, financial, spreadsheet, etc.). Inthis context, a process will generally inherit static colors from asource executable, and will permit inferences for appropriate behaviorand related processes. Dynamic colors may be assigned based on directobservation of executing processes, and may not be inherited ortransferred among processes (although the presence of a dynamic colormay be used to draw another coloring inference upon interaction withanother process). Thus, the inheritance of colors may depend in partupon the type of color that is applied, or upon explicit inheritancerules provided for a particular color.

A descriptor 420 may take a variety of forms, and may in general includeany information selected for relevance to threat detection. This may,for example, be a simple categorization of data or processes such astrusted or untrusted. For example, in one embodiment described herein,data and processes are labeled as either ‘IN’ (e.g., trusted) or ‘OUT’(e.g., untrusted). The specific content of the label is unimportant, andthis may be a binary flag, text string, encrypted data or otherhuman-readable and/or machine-readable identifier, provided that thedescriptor 420 can facilitate discrimination among labeled files—in thisexample, between trusted objects 418 and untrusted objects 418 so that,e.g., trusted data can be selectively decrypted or encrypted for usewith trusted processes. Similarly, data may be labeled as corporate dataor private data, with similar type-dependent processing provided. Forexample, private data may be encrypted with a key exclusively controlledby the data owner, while corporate data may be encrypted using aremotely managed key ring for an enterprise operated by the corporation.

In another aspect, the descriptor 420 may provide a multi-tiered orhierarchical description of the object 418 including any informationuseful for characterizing the object 418 in a threat management context.For example, in one useful configuration the descriptor 420 may includea type or category, static threat detection attributes, and an explicitidentification. The type or category for the object 418 may be anycategory or the like that characterizes a general nature or use of theobject 418 as inferred from behavior and other characteristics. Thismay, for example, include categories such as ‘game,’ ‘financial,’‘application,’ ‘electronic mail,’ ‘image,’‘video,’ ‘browser,’‘antivirus,’ and so forth. The category may be more granular, or mayinclude hierarchical categories such as ‘application:spreadsheet,’‘application:word_processing,’ and so forth. Such colors may be directlyinferred from a single action, a sequence of actions, or a combinationof actions and other colors, including, e.g., colors of processes andfiles related to a particular action, or other objects 418 that providecontext for a particular action or group of actions. One or more colorsmay also or instead be explicitly provided by a user or a process, orotherwise automatically or manually attributed to computer objects ascontemplated herein.

The static threat detection attributes may be any readily ascertainablecharacteristics of the object 418 useful in threat detection. This may,for example, include an antivirus signature, a hash, a file size, fileprivileges, a process user, a path or directory, declarations ofpermissions, an access (e.g., a resource access, or an API access), andso forth. Static threat detection attributes may also include attributesthat are derived by or supplied from other sources. For example, staticthreat detection attributes may include a reputation for an object 418,which may be expressed in any suitable or useful level of granularitysuch as with discrete categories (trusted/untrusted/unknown) or with anumerical score or other quantitative indicator. The explicitidentification may, in general, be what an object 418 calls itself,e.g., a file name or process name.

Some actions may transfer colors from a subject of the action to thetarget of the action. For example, when a process creates sub-processes,the sub-processes may inherit the colors of its parent(s). By way ofanother example, when a process is initially loaded from an executable,it may inherit the color(s) stored in the file system for or with theexecutable.

In general, the descriptor 420 may be provided in any suitable format.The descriptor 420 may for example be formed as a vector of binary flagsor other attributes that form the ‘color’ or description of an object418. The descriptor 420 may also, where appropriate, include scalarquantities for certain properties. For example, it may be relevant howmany times a system file was accessed, how many file handles a processhas open, how many times a remote resource was requested or how long aremote resource is connected, and this information may be suitablyincluded in the descriptor 420 for use in coloring objects with thecoloring system 414 and applying rules for IOC detection by the IOCmonitor 421.

An indication of compromise (IOC) monitor 421 may be provided toinstrument the endpoint 402 so that any observable actions by orinvolving various objects 418 can be detected. As with the coloringsystem 414, it will be understood that the types of observable actionswill vary significantly, and the manner in which the endpoint 402 isinstrumented to detect such actions will depend on the particular typeof object 418. For example, for files or the like, an API for a filesystem may be used to detect reads, writes, and other access (e.g.,open, read, write, move, copy, delete, etc.), and may be configured toreport to or otherwise initiate monitoring of the action taken with thefile through the file system. As another example, kernel objects may beinstrumented at the corresponding object handle or in some other manner.As a further example, a kernel driver may be used for intercepting aprocess startup. While a wide variety of objects are contemplatedherein, one of ordinary skill in the art may create suitableinstrumentation for any computing object so that it may be monitored bythe IOC monitor 421.

It will be noted that suitable instrumentation may be used for a varietyof functions and circumstances. For example, instrumentation mayusefully track requests for network access or other actions back to aparticular application or process, or data payloads back to a particularfile or data location. One of ordinary skill in the art can readilyimplement suitable traces and/or logging for any such information thatmight be useful in a particular IOC monitoring operation.

In general, the IOC monitor 421 applies rules to determine when there isan IOC 422 suitable for reporting to a threat management facility 404.It will be understood that an endpoint 402 may, in suitablecircumstances and with appropriate information, take immediate localaction to remediate a threat. However, the monitor 421 mayadvantageously accumulate a sequence of actions, and still moreadvantageously may identify inconsistencies or unexpected behaviorwithin a group of actions with improved sensitivity by comparingdescriptors 420 for various objects 418 involved in relevant actions andevents. In this manner, rules may be applied based upon the descriptors420 that better discriminate malicious activity while reducing thequantity and frequency of information that must be communicated to aremote threat management facility 404. At the same time, all of therelevant information provided by the descriptors 420 can be sent in anIOC 422 when communicating a potential issue to the threat managementfacility 404. For example, during the course of execution, a specificprocess (as evidenced by its observed actions) may be assigned colordescriptors indicating that it is a browser process. Further, thespecific process may be assigned an attribute indicating that it hasexposed itself to external URLs or other external data. Subsequently,the same process may be observed to be taking an action suitable for aninternal or system process, such as opening up shared memory to anotherprocess that has coloring descriptions indicating that it is a systemprocess. When this last action is observed, an inconsistency in thevarious color descriptors between the subject of the action—theexternally exposed browser process—and the target of the action mayresult in a well-defined IOC, which may be directly processed withimmediate local action taken. The IOC may also or instead be reportedexternally as appropriate.

Thus, an endpoint 402 in an enterprise 410 may be instrumented with acoloring system 414 and monitor 421 to better detect potentiallymalicious activity using descriptors 420 that have been selected forrelevance to threat detection along with a corresponding set of rulesdeveloped for the particular descriptors 420 that are being used tolabel or color various objects 418. By way of example, the object 418may be a web browser that starts off being colored as a ‘browser’ and an‘internet facing’ application. Based on this descriptor 420, a range ofbehaviors or actions may be considered normal, such as accessing remotenetwork resources. However, if an object 418 colored with thisdescriptor 420 attempted to elevate privileges for a process, or toaccess a registry or system files, then this inconsistency in action maytrigger a rule violation and result in an IOC 422.

In general, any action or series of actions that cumulatively invoke aparticular reporting or action rule may be combined into an IOC 422 andcommunicated to the threat management facility 404. For example, an IOC422 may include a malicious or strange behavior, or an indication of amalicious or strange behavior. The IOC 422 may be a normalized IOC thatexpresses one or more actions in a platform independent manner. That is,the IOC 422 may express a malicious behavior or suspected maliciousbehavior without reference to platform-specific information such asdetails of an operating system (e.g., iOS, MacOS, Windows, Android,Linux, and so forth), hardware, applications, naming conventions, and soforth. Thus, a normalized IOC may be suitable for identifying aparticular threat across multiple platforms, and may include platformindependent processes, actions, or behaviors, or may express suchprocess, actions, or behaviors in a platform independent manner. Thenormalized IOC may be generated from the IOC 422, e.g., it may be aconverted version of the IOC 422 suitable for use with multipleplatforms, or it may simply be any IOC 422 that has been created in aplatform independent form. Process colorization (i.e., using thecoloring system 414) as described herein may be used to create anormalized IOC.

In general, a threat management facility 404 for the enterprise 410 mayinclude an IOC collector 426 that receives the IOC 422 from the endpoint402 and determines an appropriate action. This may include any suitableremedial action, or where one or more IOCs 422 are inconclusive,continued monitoring or increased monitoring as appropriate.

The threat management facility 404 may provide a variety of threatmanagement or monitoring tools 424, any of which may be deployed inresponse to IOCs 422 collected by the IOC collector 426. These tools 424may include without limitation a scanning engine,whitelisting/blacklisting, reputation analysis, web filtering, anemulator, protection architecture, live protection, runtime detection,APT detection, network antivirus products, IOC detection, access logs, aheartbeat, a sandbox or quarantine system, and so forth.

The analysis facility 406 may provide a remote processing resource foranalyzing malicious activities and creating rules 434 suitable fordetecting IOCs 422 based on objects 420 and descriptors 420. It isgenerally contemplated that suitable attributes of certain descriptors418 and one or more rules 434 may be developed together so that objects418 can be appropriately labeled with descriptors 420 that permitinvocation of rules 434 and creation of IOCs 422 at appropriate times.The analysis facility 406 may include a variety of analysis tools 428including, without limitation, tools for regular expression,whitelisting/blacklisting, crowd sourcing, identifiers, and so forth.The analysis tools 428 may also or instead include information and toolssuch as URL look-ups, genotypes, identities, file look-up, reputations,and so forth. The analysis facility 406 may also provide numerousrelated functions such as an interface for receiving information on new,unknown files or processes, and for testing of such code or content in asandbox on the analysis facility 406.

The analysis facility 406 may also or instead include a compromisedetector 430, where the compromise detector 430 is configured to receivenew threat information for analysis and creation of new rules anddescriptors as appropriate, as well as corresponding remedial actions.The compromise detector 430 may include any tools described herein orotherwise known in the art for detecting compromises or evaluating newthreats in an enterprise 410.

In general, a rule 434 may be manually created with correspondinghuman-readable semantics, e.g., where a process is labeled as a browserprocess or other category or type that can be interpreted by a human. Itshould, however, be appreciated that the compromise detector 430 mayalso be configured to automatically generate descriptors 420 and rules434 suitable for distribution to a threat management facility 404 and anendpoint 402. In this latter mode, the meaning of a particulardescriptor 420 may not have a readily expressible human-readablemeaning. Thus, it will be understood that attributes selected forrelevance to threat detection may include conventional attributes, aswell as attributes without conventional labels or meaning except in thecontext of a particular, computer-generated rule for threat detection.

In general, the analysis facility 406 may be within an enterprise 410,or the analysis facility 406 may be external to the enterprise 410 andadministered, for example, by a trusted third party. Further, athird-party source 416 may provide additional threat data 438 oranalyses for use by the analysis facility 406 and the threat managementfacility 404. The third-party resource 416 may be a data resource thatprovides threat data 438 and analyses, where the threat data 438 is anydata that is useful in detecting, monitoring, or analyzing threats. Forexample, the threat data 438 may include a database of threats,signatures, and the like. By way of example, the third-party resource416 may be a resource provided by The MITRE Corporation.

The system 400 may include a reputation engine 440 storing a pluralityof reputations 442. The reputation engine 440 may include a reputationmanagement system for the generation, analysis, identification, editing,storing, etc., of reputations 442. The reputation engine 440 may includereputation-based filtering, which may be similar to the reputationfiltering discussed above with reference to FIG. 1. The reputationengine 440 may be located on the threat management facility 404 or theendpoint 402 as shown in FIG. 4, or the reputation engine 440 may belocated elsewhere in the system 400. The reputation engine 440 mayreceive an IOC 422 or a stream of IOCs 422, and may generate or utilizereputations 442 for the IOCs 422. The reputation engine 440 may also orinstead receive actions, behaviors, events, interactions, and so forth,and may generate or utilize reputations 442 for any of the foregoing.The reputation engine 440 may generate or revise a reputation 442 basedon behaviors, actions, events, interactions, IOCs 422, other reputations442, a history of events, data, rules, state of encryption, colors, andso forth. The reputation engine 440 may utilize a third-party resource,e.g., for the third-party resource's reputation data.

The reputations 442 may include reputations for any of the objects 418as described herein. In general, the reputations 442 may relate to thetrustworthiness of the objects 418 or an attribute thereof (e.g., thesource of the object 418, a behavior of the object 418, another objectinteracting with the object 418, and so forth). The reputations 442 mayinclude lists of known sources of malware or known suspicious objects418. The reputations 442 may also or instead include lists of known safeor trusted resources or objects 418. The reputations 442 may be storedin a reputations database included on the reputation engine 440 orlocated elsewhere in the system 400. The reputations 442 may beexpressed in any suitable or useful level of granularity such as withdiscrete categories (e.g., trusted, untrusted, unknown, malicious, safe,etc.) or with a numerical score or other quantitative indicator. Thereputations 442 may also be scaled.

In general, in the system 400 of FIG. 4, a malicious activity on theendpoint 402 may be detected by the IOC monitor 421, and a correspondingIOC 422 may be transmitted to the threat management facility 404 forremedial action as appropriate. The threat management facility 404 mayfurther communicate one or more IOCs 422 to the analysis facility 406for additional analyses and/or resolution of inconclusive results. Otherdetails and variations are provided below. While the use of coloring andIOCs as contemplated herein can improve threat detection and remediationin a number of ways, the system 400 can be further improved withgranular control over access to endpoint data using an encryptionsystem. A system for key-based management of processes and files on anendpoint is now discussed in greater detail.

FIG. 5 illustrates a system for encryption management. Generally, thesystem 500 may include endpoints 502, an administration host 504, and athreat management facility 506, which may include policy manager 508 andkey manager 510. The system 500 may provide for the management of users512, policies 514, keys 516 (e.g., disposed on key rings 518), andendpoints 502 (e.g., from the administration host 504). The system 500may utilize various storage and processing resources, which may belocal, remote, virtual, disposed in a cloud, or the like.

The endpoints 502 may be any of the endpoints as described herein, e.g.,with reference to the other figures. The endpoints 502 may also orinstead include other end user devices and other devices to be managed.The endpoints 502 may include a web browser for use by the users 512,with supporting cryptographic functions implemented using cryptographiclibraries in the web browser. The endpoints 502 may communicate with theother components of the system 500 using any suitable communicationinterface, which may include Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption,Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), and so forth for additionalsecurity.

The endpoints 502 may include objects as described herein. For example,the endpoints 502 may include processes 520 and files 522. The processes520 may be labeled (e.g., by a coloring system using descriptors asdescribed above) in such a manner that the process is ‘IN,’ where theprocess 520 is in compliance with policies 514 administered for theendpoint 502 from a remote threat management facility 506, or theprocess is ‘OUT,’ where the process 520 is out of compliance with apolicy (or a number of policies) in the policies 514 for an enterprise.This may provide IN processes 520A and OUT processes 520B as shown inFIG. 5. The files 522 may be similarly labeled by a coloring system withdescriptors that identify each file 522 as IN, where the file 522complies with the policies 514 and is accordingly encrypted using, e.g.,a remotely managed key ring 518, or the file is OUT, where the file 522does not conform to the policies 514 and is accordingly not encryptedusing the remotely managed key ring 518. This may provide IN files 522Aand OUT files 522B as shown in FIG. 5. One skilled in the art willrecognize that other objects of the endpoint 502 or other components ofthe system 500 may be labeled in a similar manner where they are eitherIN or OUT. By coloring objects in this manner and basing key access onthe corresponding color, the “IN” software objects may operate in aprotected environment that objectively appears to be in compliance withthe policies 514. Other files and processes may still be used on theendpoint 502, but they will operate in an “OUT” or unprotectedenvironment that cannot obtain access to any of the “IN” content orfunctionality.

In an implementation, the system 500 may include determining whether anendpoint 502 is IN or OUT or whether a component of the endpoint 502 isIN or OUT, which may be based upon a set of rules (e.g., the rulesoutlined herein) or policies such as the policies 514 described herein.In some aspects, if the entire endpoint 502 is OUT—that is, out ofcompliance with one or more policies 514, the endpoint 502 will not havekey access or access to any protected content. Conversely, if theendpoint 502 is IN, the endpoint 502 may have access to protectedcontent. Thus, in one aspect, the notion of IN/OUT may be applied at anendpoint level, and data protection may be a consequence of endpointprotection. Endpoint protection may also or instead be applied at a moregranular level, e.g., by determining whether executables, processes 520,files 522, etc., on the endpoint 502 are IN or OUT, which may be basedupon rules or policies 514 as described herein.

The administration host 504 may include a web browser, which may includea cryptography library 524 and a web user interface (e.g., HTML,JavaScript, etc.). An administrator may utilize the web user interfaceto administer a key management system and perform administrativefunctions such as creating and distributing keys 516, establishingsecurity policies, creating key hierarchies and rules, and so forth. Theendpoint 502 may also include a cryptographic library 524 implementingcryptographic protocols for using key material in the key ring 518 toencrypt and decrypt data as needed.

The threat management facility 506 may include any of the threatmanagement facilities or similar systems described herein. In general,the threat management facility 506 may include a policy manager 508 andkey manager 510. Alternatively, one or more of the policy manager 508and key manager 510 may be located elsewhere on a network.

The policy manager 508 may implement one or more policies 514, andmaintain, distribute, and monitor the policies for devices in anenterprise. The policies 514 may include any policies 514 relating tosecure operation of endpoints 502 in an enterprise. This may, forexample, include hardware configuration policies, software configurationpolicies, communication policies, update policies, or any other policiesrelating to, e.g., the configuration of an endpoint 502, communicationsby an endpoint 502, software executing on an endpoint 502 and so forth.Policies 514 may include usage criteria based on, e.g., signatures,indications of compromise, reputation, user identity, and so forth. Withrespect to the key management system contemplated herein, the policies514 may include a cryptographic protocol design, key servers, userprocedures, and other relevant protocols, or these cryptographicprotocols may be provided elsewhere for use by the policy manager 508.The policies 514 may also include any rules for compliance includingthose mentioned above or any other suitable rules or algorithms that canbe applied to determine whether objects and components are ‘IN’ or ‘OUT’as contemplated herein.

The key manager 510 may be part of the threat management facility 506,or it may be remotely managed elsewhere, e.g., in a remote cloudresource or the like. The key manager 510 may also or instead bedisposed on the administration host 504 and one or more endpoints 502 ina manner independent of the threat management facility 506. In thismanner, all cryptographic operations may be isolated from the threatmanagement facility 506 and instead may be performed by a web browser orthe like executing on the administration host 504 or an endpoint 502.The key manager 510 may manage the keys 516, including managing thegeneration, exchange, storage, use, and replacement of keys 516. The keymanager 510 may include a key ring 518, where the keys 516 are disposedon the key ring 518 using one root key 526. The key manager 510 may alsoor instead include a variety of key management and other secureprocesses, including without limitation, administrator registration,establishing trust to endpoints 502, key distribution to endpoints 502,policy deployment, endpoint status reporting, and local key backup.

The users 512 may have full access to encrypted data. Alternatively, theusers 512 may have limited access to encrypted data, or no access toencrypted data. Access may be limited to users 512 using endpoints 502that are deemed ‘IN’ by the system, as well as to processes 520 that areIN, as further described herein.

The keys 516 may include cryptographic keys in a cryptosystem, i.e.,decryption keys. In one aspect, the keys 516 may be disposed on one keyring 518 using one root key 526. In general, the keys 516 may be createdand managed using, e.g., symmetric key technology, asymmetric keytechnology, or any other key technology or combination of keytechnologies suitable for securing data in an enterprise including, forexample the Data Encryption Standard (DES), Triple DES, AdvancedEncryption Standard (AES), elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), and soforth. The cryptosystem may also or instead include any suitable publickey infrastructure or the like supporting the distribution and use ofkeys for encryption, digital signatures, and so forth.

The key ring 518 may facilitate simplified management of the system 500.For example, by reducing the data protection system down to a single keyring 518, the system can eliminate or reduce the overhead for managementof keys 516. In one aspect, all of the data on a key ring 518 isprotected by one root key 526. By reducing the data protection systemdown to a single key ring 518 protected by one root key 526, allprivileged users 512 on uncompromised platforms can have access to allprotected data. In this embodiment, data is either ‘IN’ (i.e.,encrypted), or it's ‘OUT’ (i.e., not encrypted). In one aspect, thedefault system does not include any additional level of granularity ofaccess control.

The cryptography library 524 may be disposed on the administration host504 as shown in FIG. 5. The cryptography library 524 may also bedisposed on the endpoint 502, e.g., in a web browser, or it may bedisposed on another component of the system 500, or any combination ofthese. The cryptographic library 524 may be installed by anadministrator. In general, key material 530 from the key ring 518 may bestored in a cache 532 on the endpoint 502 within any suitable memory onthe endpoint 502 for use in encryption and decryption as contemplatedherein. As noted above, an enterprise that systematically uses coloringand indications of compromise can be improved through the use of asynchronized or integrated key management system as contemplated herein.This system may be still further improved with the addition of aheartbeat system that communicates heartbeats from an endpointcontaining health and status information about the endpoint. A suitableheartbeat system is now described in greater detail.

FIG. 6 illustrates a threat management system using heartbeats. Ingeneral, a system 600 may include an endpoint 602, a gateway 604, athreat management system 606, and an enterprise management system 608that manages an enterprise including the endpoint 602, the gateway 604,and one or more additional endpoints 610. Each of these components maybe configured with suitable programming to participate in the detectionand remediation of an advanced persistent threat (APT) or other malwarethreat as contemplated herein. Although the term “gateway” is used forthe device between an endpoint and an external network, it will beappreciated that this device may also or instead include a switch,router, firewall, and/or other network elements, any of which may beincluded in the “gateway” as that term is used herein.

The endpoint 602 may be any of the endpoints described herein, or anyother device or network asset that might join or participate in anenterprise network. The endpoint 602 may contain a threat 612 such as anadvanced persistent threat, virus, or similar malware that resides onthe endpoint 602. The threat 612 may have reached the endpoint 602 in avariety of ways, and may have been placed manually or automatically onthe endpoint 602 by a malicious source. It will be understood that thethreat 612 may take any number of forms and have any number ofcomponents. For example, the threat 612 may include an executable filethat can execute independently, or the threat 612 may be a macro,plug-in, or the like that executes within another application.Similarly, the threat 612 may manifest as one or more processes orthreads executing on the endpoint 602. The threat 612 may install from afile on the endpoint 602 or a file remote from the endpoint 602, and thethreat 612 may create one or more other files such as data files or thelike while executing. Advanced persistent threats can be particularlydifficult to detect and remediate, and the systems and methodscontemplated herein can advantageously provide improved sensitivity tosuch threats, as well as enabling improved remediation strategies.However, the systems and methods contemplated herein may also or insteadbe used to detect and remediate other types of malware threats. As such,in this context references to a particular type of threat (e.g., anadvanced persistent threat) should be understood to generally includeany type of malware or other threat to an endpoint or enterprise unlessa more specific threat or threat type is explicitly provided orotherwise clear from the context.

The threat 612 may be analyzed by one or more threat countermeasures onthe endpoint 602 such as a whitelisting filter 614 that approves eachitem of code before executing on the endpoint 602 and prevents executionof non-whitelisted code. The endpoint 602 may also include an antivirusengine 616 or other malware detection software that uses any of avariety of techniques to identify malicious code by reputation or othercharacteristics. A runtime detection engine 618 may also monitorexecuting code to identify possible threats. More generally, any of avariety of threat detection techniques may be applied to the threat 612before and during execution. In general, a threat 612 may evade theseand other security measures and begin executing as a process 620 on theendpoint 602.

Network traffic 622 from the process 620 may be monitored and logged bya traffic monitor 624 on the endpoint 602. The traffic monitor 624 may,for example, log a time and a source of each network request from theendpoint 602. Where the endpoint 602 is within an enterprise network,the network traffic 622 may pass through the gateway 604 in transit to adata network such as the Internet. While the gateway 604 may belogically or physically positioned between the endpoint 602 and anexternal data network, it will be understood that other configurationsare possible. For example, where the endpoint 602 is associated with anenterprise network but operating remotely, the endpoint 602 may form aVPN or other secure tunnel or the like to the gateway 604 for use of athreat management system 606, enterprise management system 608, and anyother enterprise resources.

The endpoint 602 may use a heartbeat 626 to periodically and securelycommunicate status to the gateway 604. The heartbeat 626 may be createdby a health monitor 628 within the endpoint 602, and may be transmittedto a remote health monitor 630, for example, at the gateway 604. Thehealth monitor 628 may monitor system health in a variety of ways, suchas by checking the status of individual software items executing on theendpoint 602, checking that antivirus and other security software is upto date (e.g., with current virus definition files and so forth) andrunning correctly, checking the integrity of cryptographic key stores,checking for compliance with enterprise security policies, and checkingany other hardware or software components of the endpoint 602 asnecessary or helpful for health monitoring. The health monitor 628 maythus condition the issuance of a heartbeat 626 on a satisfactory statusof the endpoint 602 according to any suitable criteria, enterprisepolices, and other evaluation techniques. The remote health monitor 630may also or instead be provided at the threat management facility 650,for example as part of the threat management system 606 or theenterprise management system 608.

The heartbeat 626 may be secured in any suitable manner so that thehealth monitor 630 can reliably confirm the source of the heartbeat 626and the status of the endpoint 602. To this end, the heartbeat 626 maybe cryptographically signed or secured using a private key so that themonitor 630 can authenticate the origin of the heartbeat 626 using acorresponding public key. In one aspect, the heartbeat 626 may include acombination of plaintext information and encrypted information, such aswhere the status information for the endpoint is provided in plaintextwhile a digital signature for authentication is cryptographicallysecured. In another aspect, all of the information in the heartbeat 626may be encrypted.

In one aspect, a key vault 632 may be provided on the endpoint tosupport cryptographic functions associated with a secure heartbeat. Anobfuscated key vault 632 may support numerous useful functions,including without limitation, private key decryption, asymmetricsigning, and validation with a chain of trust to a specific rootvalidation certificate. A variety of suitable key management andcryptographic systems are known in the art and may be usefully employedto a support the use of a secure heartbeat as contemplated herein. Thesystem may support a secure heartbeat in numerous ways. For example, thesystem may ensure that signing and decryption keys can only be used inauthorized ways and inside an intended Access Control mechanism. Thesystem may use “anti-lifting” techniques to ensure that a signing keycan only be used when the endpoint is healthy. The system may ensurethat attacking software cannot, without first reverse-engineering thekey vault 632, extract the original key material. The system may alsousefully ensure that an attacker cannot undetectably replace the publickeys in a root certificate store, either directly or indirectly, such asin an attack that tries to cause the code to validate against adifferent set of root keys without directly replacing any keys in theroot store.

A robust heartbeat 626 may usefully provide defensive mechanisms againstreverse engineering of obfuscated content (e.g., the private keymaterial stored in key vault 632, the code used to validate the correctrunning of the remainder of the systems as part of the heartbeat 626code itself) and any anti-lifting protections to prevent malware fromdirectly using the endpoint 602 (or the health monitor 628 on theendpoint 602) to continue to send out signed heartbeat packets (e.g.stating that “all is well” with the endpoint) after security mechanismshave been impaired, disabled, or otherwise compromised in any way.Lifting in this manner by malicious code can be materially mitigated byproviding statistical validation (e.g., with checksums of code) of callstacks, calling processes, and core processes. Likewise, statisticalchecks as well as checksum integrations into the cryptographiccalculations may protect against code changes in the heartbeat 626 codeitself.

A variety of useful techniques may be employed to improve security ofthe key vault 632 and the heartbeat 626. For example, the system may usedomain shifting so that original key material is inferred based onhardware and software properties readily available to the key vault 632,and to ensure that key material uses non-standard or varying algorithms.Software properties may, for example, include readily determined systemvalues such as hashes of nearby code. In another aspect, the keys may bedomain shifted in a manner unique to the endpoint 602 so that the mannerof statistical validation of call stacks and core software is unique tothe endpoint 602. Further the key vault may be provisioned so that apublic key stored in the key vault 632 is signed with a certificate (orinto a certificate chain) that can be externally validated by a networkappliance or other trusted third party or directly by the health monitor628 or remote health monitor 630.

The heartbeat 626 may encode any useful status information, and may betransmitted from the endpoint 602 on any desired schedule including anyperiodic, aperiodic, random, deterministic, or other schedule.Configured in this manner, the heartbeat 626 can provide secure,tamper-resistant instrumentation for status of the endpoint 602, and inparticular an indication that the endpoint 602 is online anduncompromised. A delay or disappearance of the heartbeat 626 from theendpoint 602 may indicate that the endpoint 602 has been compromised;however, this may also simply indicate that the endpoint 602 has beenpowered off or intentionally disconnected from the network. Thus, othercriteria may be used in addition to the disappearance or interruption ofthe heartbeat 626 to more accurately detect malicious software. Somesuch techniques are described below, but it will be understood that thismay include any supplemental information that might tend to make anattack on the endpoint 602 more or less likely. For example, if theheartbeat 626 is interrupted but the endpoint 602 is still sourcingnetwork traffic, then an inference might suitably be made that theendpoint 602 is compromised.

The threat management system 606 may, in general, be any of the threatmanagement systems described herein. The enterprise management system608 generally provides tools and interfaces for administration of theenterprise and various endpoints 610 and other resources or assetsattached thereto. It will be understood that, the functions of thethreat management system 606 and the enterprise management system 608may vary, and general threat management and administration functions maybe distributed in a variety of ways between and among these and othercomponents. This is generally indicated in FIG. 6 as a threat managementfacility 650 that includes the threat management system 606 and theenterprise management system 608. It will be understood that either orboth of these systems may be administered by third parties on behalf ofthe enterprise, or managed completely within the enterprise, or somecombination of these, all without departing from the scope of thisdisclosure. It will similarly be understood that a reference herein to athreat management facility 650 is not intended to imply any particularcombination of functions or components, and shall only be understood toinclude such functions or components as explicitly stated in aparticular context, or as necessary to provide countermeasures formalware (e.g., advanced persistent threats) as contemplated herein. Italso should be understood that the heartbeat may be monitored and/ormanaged by the threat management system 606, the enterprise managementsystem 608, or another component of the threat management facility 650.

The system 600 may include a certificate authority 660 or similar trustauthority or the like (shown as a “trusted third party” in the figure).In order to provide a meaningfully secure heartbeat 626, the heartbeat626 may be secured with reference to a trusted authority such as acertificate authority 660 that can issue cryptographic certificatesallowing other entities to rely on assertions about identity (e.g., byenabling verification with a trusted third party), and to enablecryptographically secure communications. The cryptographic techniquesfor creating and using such certificates and relationships are wellknown, and are not repeated here. The certificate authority 660 may beadministered by the enterprise management system 608 or some otherinternal resource of the enterprise, or the certificate authority 660may be administered by a trusted third party such as any of a variety ofcommercially available certificate authorities or the like. Thus, thecertificate authority 660, or some other similar cloud service or thelike, may operate as a security broker to register, e.g., endpoints 602,610, the gateway 604, the threat management facility 650, and so forth,and provide cryptographic material for each of the other trustingentities to securely communicate with one another.

Once registered with the certificate authority 660 in this fashion, theheartbeat may be used to establish trust between the endpoint 602 andother entities, and to validate the source of the heartbeat 626 when itis received. More generally, a heartbeat 626 secured in this manner mayprovide an encrypted channel between network entities such as anendpoint 602 and the gateway 604 (or a firewall or the like). The natureof the communication may provide a technique for validating the source,as well as obfuscating the contents with encryption. Thus when, forexample, the endpoint 602 provides information about a good/healthystate or a bad/compromised state, the recipient may rely on this stateinformation and act accordingly.

FIG. 7 shows an architecture for endpoint protection in an enterprisenetwork security system. In general, an endpoint may include aprocessing environment 702, a file system 706 (such as a data storagesystem or the like), a threat monitor 720 and a key wrapper 730.

The processing environment 702 may, for example, be any environment suchas an operating system or the like suitable for executing one or moreprocesses 704.

Each process 704 may be an instance of a software application, computerprogram, portion of a computer program or other code executing withinthe processing environment 702. A process 704 may execute, e.g., on aprocessor, group of processors, or other processing circuitry orplatform for executing computer-executable code. A process 704 mayinclude executable computer code, as well as an allocation of memory,file descriptors or handles for data sources and sinks, securityattributes such as an owner and any associated permissions, and acontext including the content of physical memory used by the process704. A process 704 may be or may include one or more threads. Moregenerally, a process 704 may include any code executing on an endpointsuch as any of the endpoints described herein.

The file system 706 may include a data storage system or the like, e.g.,where a data store including one or more files (e.g., the files 708shown in the figure) is included as part of the data storage system. Thefile system 706 may be generally associated with an operating systemthat provides the processing environment 702, and serves as anintermediary between processes 704 executing in the processingenvironment 702 and one or more files 708 accessible to the endpoint.The file system 706 may provide a directory structure or other constructto facilitate organization of the files 708, and the file system 706generally supports file functions such as creating, deleting, opening,closing, reading, writing, and so forth.

An extension 710 may be included in the file system 706 by modifying theoperating system kernel. While other programming techniques may beemployed to perform the functions of an extension 710 as contemplatedherein, direct modifications to or additions to the operating systempermit the extension 710 to operate transparently to the processingenvironment 702 and the processes 704 without requiring anymodifications or adaptations. The extension 710 may, for example, beimplemented as a file system filter (in a MICROSOFT WINDOWS environment)or a mount point to a directory (in an APPLE iOS environment). Theextension 710 to the files system as contemplated herein performs twoconcurrent functions. First, the extension 710 communicates with athreat monitor 720 in order to receive updates on the security statusand exposure status of the processes 704 or the endpoint. Second theextension 710 communicates with a key wrapper 730 that provides keymaterial for encrypting and decrypting data in the files 708. Finally,the extension 710 operates to conditionally provide encryption anddecryption of the files 708 for the processes 704 based on a currentsecurity or exposure state, as described in greater detail below.

The threat monitor 720 may include any suitable threat monitoring,malware detection, antivirus program or the like suitable for monitoringand reporting on a security state of an endpoint or individual processes704 executing thereon. This may include local threat monitoring using,e.g., behavioral analysis or static analysis. The threat monitor 720 mayalso or instead use reputation to evaluate the security state ofprocesses 704 based on the processes 704 themselves, source files orexecutable code for the processes 704, or network activity initiated bythe processes 704. For example, if a process 704 requests data from aremote URL that is known to have a bad reputation, this information maybe used to infer a compromised security state of the endpoint. While athreat monitor 720 may operate locally, the threat monitor 720 may alsoor instead use remote resources such as a gateway carrying traffic toand from the endpoint, or a remote threat management facility thatprovides reputation information, malware signatures, policy informationand the like for the endpoint and other devices within an enterprisesuch as the enterprise described above.

The threat monitor 720 may also or instead monitor the health of one ormore of the system, an endpoint, a process 704, and so forth. The healthmonitoring may be used to provide periodic or aperiodic information fromone or more system components about system health, security, status, andso forth. Implementations may include using the health monitoring forcontrolling access, e.g., to files 708, to keys 734, to key material forencrypting and decrypting individual files 708, and so forth.

In general, the threat monitor 720 provides monitoring of a securitystate and an exposure state of the endpoint. The security state may, forexample, be ‘compromised’, ‘secure’, or some other state or combinationof states. This may be based on detections of known malware, suspiciousactivity, policy violations and so forth. The exposure state may be‘exposed’ or ‘unexposed’, reflecting whether or not a particular process704 or file 708 has been exposed to potentially unsafe content. Thus,exposure may not necessarily represent a specific threat, but thepotential for exposure to unsafe content. This may be tracked in avariety of ways, such as by using the coloring system described abovewith reference to FIG. 5.

The key wrapper 730 may contain a key ring 732 with one or more keys 734for encrypting and decrypting files 708. The key ring 732 may becryptographically protected within the key wrapper 730 in order toprevent malicious access thereto, and the key wrapper 730 maycommunicate with the extension 710 to provide keys 734 for accessing thefiles 708 at appropriate times, depending, for example, on whetherprocesses 704 are secure or exposed. In one aspect, the files 708 arestored in a non-volatile memory such as a disk drive, or in arandom-access memory that provides a cache for the disk drive, and thekey wrapper 730 may be stored in a separate physical memory such as avolatile memory accessible to the operating system and the extension 710but not to processes 704 executing in the user space of the processingenvironment 702.

In one aspect, every document or file on the endpoint may have aseparate key. This may be, for example, a unique, symmetric key that canbe used for encryption and decryption of the corresponding file. The keywrapper 730 may control access to the key material for encrypting anddecrypting individual files, and may be used by the extension 710 tocontrol access by individual processes 704 executing on the endpoint. Asdescribed herein, the extension 710 may generally control access tofiles 708 based on an exposure state, a security state, or other contextsuch as the user of a calling process or the like. In the event of asevere compromise, or a detection of a compromise independent ofparticular processes, a key shredding procedure may be invoked todestroy the entire key wrapper 730 immediately and prevent any furtheraccess to the files 708. In such circumstances, the keys can only berecovered by the endpoint when a remediation is confirmed.Alternatively, the files may be accessed directly and decrypted from asecure, remote resource that can access the keys 734.

FIG. 8 illustrates a system for forensic analysis for computerprocesses. The system 800 may include an endpoint 810 containing a datarecorder 820, a monitoring facility 830, and any number of objects 812and events 814. An analysis facility 840 may be coupled in acommunicating relationship with the endpoint 810 over a data network 850such as any of the networks described above. It will be appreciatedthat, while illustrated as components of the endpoint 810, certaincomponents of the system 800 such as the data recorder 820 and themonitoring facility 830 and the analysis facility may also or instead berealized as remote services instantiated on a virtual appliance, apublic or private cloud, or the like, any of which may be coupled to theendpoint 810 through the data network 850 or another communicationchannel (not shown). Each of the components of the system 800 may beconfigured with suitable programming and configuration to participate inthe various forensic techniques, threat detection techniques, andsecurity management techniques contemplated herein.

The endpoint 810 may be any of the endpoints described herein, e.g., acomputing device in an enterprise network, or any other device ornetwork asset that might join or participate in an enterprise orotherwise operate on an enterprise network. This may, for example,include a server, a client device such as a desktop computer or a mobilecomputing device (e.g., a laptop computer or a tablet), a cellularphone, a smart phone, or other computing device suitable forparticipating in the system 800 or in an enterprise.

In general, the endpoint 810 may include any number of computing objects812, which may for example, be processes executed by one or moreprocessors or other processing circuitry, files or data stored inmemory, or any other computing objects described herein. While the termobject has a number of specific meanings in the art, and in particularin object-oriented programming, it will be understood that the term‘object’ as used herein is intended to be significantly broader, and mayinclude any data, process, file or combination of these includingwithout limitation any process, application, executable, script, dynamiclinked library (DLL), file, data, database, data source, data structure,function, resource locator (e.g., uniform resource locator (URL) orother uniform resource identifier (URI)), or the like that might beresident on the endpoint 810 and manipulated by the endpoint 810 oranother component of the system 800 or other systems described elsewhereherein. The object 812 may also or instead include a remote resource,such as a resource identified in a URL. That is, while the object 812 inthe figure is depicted as residing on the endpoint 810, an object 812may also reside elsewhere in the system 800, for example with a link,pointer, or reference.

The object 812 may be an item that is performing an action or causing anevent 814, or the object 812 may be an item that is receiving the actionor is the result of an event 814 (e.g., the object 812 may be an item inthe system 800 being acted upon by an event 814 or another object 812).In general, an event 814 as contemplated herein may be any data flow,execution flow, control flow, network flow, or other similar action orevent that might causally relate objects 812 to one another. Where theobject 812 is data or includes data, the object 812 may be encrypted orotherwise protected, or the object 812 may be unencrypted or otherwiseunprotected. The object 812 may be a process or other computing objectthat performs an action, which may include a single event 814 or acollection or sequence of events 814 taken by a process. The object 812may also or instead include an item such as a file or lines of code thatare executable to perform such actions. The object 812 may also orinstead include a computing component upon which an action is taken,e.g., a system setting (e.g., a registry key or the like), a data file,a URL, and so forth. The object 812 may exhibit a behavior such as aninteraction with another object or a component of the system 800.

Objects 812 may be described in terms of persistence. The object 812may, for example, be a part of a process, and remain persistent as longas that process is alive. The object 812 may instead be persistentacross an endpoint 810 and remain persistent as long as an endpoint 810is active or alive. The object 812 may instead be a global object havingpersistence outside of an endpoint 810, such as a URL or a data store.In other words, the object 812 may be a persistent object withpersistence outside of the endpoint 810.

Although many if not most objects 812 will typically be benign objectsforming a normal part of the computing environment for an operatingendpoint 810, an object 812 may contain software associated with anadvanced persistent threat (APT) or other malware that resides partiallyor entirely on the endpoint 810. This associated software may havereached the endpoint 810 in a variety of ways, and may have been placedmanually or automatically on the endpoint 810 by a malicious source. Itwill be understood that the associated software may take any number offorms and have any number of components. For example, the associatedsoftware may include an executable file that can execute independently,or the associated software may be a macro, plug-in, or the like thatexecutes within another application. Similarly, the associated softwaremay manifest as one or more processes or threads executing on theendpoint 810. Further, the associated software may install from a fileon the endpoint 810 (or a file remote from the endpoint 810), and theassociated software may create one or more files such as data files orthe like while executing. Associated software should be understood togenerally include all such files and processes except where a specificfile or process is more specifically noted.

An event 814 may include an action, a behavior, an interaction, and soforth. The event 814 may be generated by or otherwise related to anobject 812. For example, the event 814 may be associated with a file andinclude an action such as a read, a write, an open, a move, a copy, adelete, and so forth. The event 814 may also or instead include aninter-process communication, e.g., a create, a handle, a debug, a remoteinjection, and so forth. The event 814 may also or instead includeaccessing an Internet Protocol (IP) address or URL.

The data recorder 820 may monitor and record activity related to theobjects 812 and events 814 occurring on the endpoint 810. The activityof the endpoint 810 may be stored in a data log 822 or the like on thedata recorder 820, which may be stored locally on the endpoint 810 (asdepicted) or remotely at a threat management resource, or somecombination of these, such as where the data log 822 is periodicallytransmitted to a remote facility for archiving or analysis. The datarecorder 820 may continuously record any activity occurring on theendpoint 810 for predetermined periods of time before overwritingpreviously recorded data. Thus, the data log 822 may include acontinuous data feed of events 814. When an event 814 is detected thatis a beacon or trigger event (such as a file detection, a malicioustraffic detection, or the like), the data log 822 may be saved andtransmitted to an analysis facility 840 or the like for analysis, e.g.,to determine a root cause of the beacon or trigger event. The data log822 may be used to create an event graph or other snapshot of theactivity on the endpoint 810, e.g., for a period of time surrounding abeacon or trigger event. The beacon or trigger event may be detectedlocally by the monitoring facility 830, or remotely by a remote threatmanagement facility or the like, or some combination of these.

While illustrated on the endpoint 810, it will be understood that thedata recorder 820 may also or instead be implemented at a remotelocation such as a threat management facility or other enterprisenetwork security resource. The data recorder 820 may be provisioned onthe same or a different device than a data store in which data isstored. The data recorder 820 may be configured to record data asefficiently as possible so as to minimize impact on the endpoint 810.

The monitoring facility 830 may work in conjunction with the datarecorder 820 to instrument the endpoint 810 so that any observableevents 814 by or involving various objects 812 can be monitored andrecorded. It will be appreciated that various filtering rules andtechniques may be used to synopsize, summarize, filter, compress orotherwise process information captured by the data recorder 820 to helpensure that relevant information is captured while maintaining practicallimits on the amount of information that is gathered.

A security product 832 may execute on the endpoint 810 to detect asecurity event on the endpoint 810, which may act as the beacon ortrigger event for the system 800. The security product 832 may usetechniques such as signature-based and behavioral-based malwaredetection including without limitation one or more of host intrusionprevention, malicious traffic detection, URL blocking, file-baseddetection, and so forth.

The beacon or trigger event on the endpoint 810 may be a fully qualified(e.g., definitive) detection of a compromise or other maliciousactivity. In another aspect, the beacon or trigger event on the endpoint810 may be a suspicious behavior that is suspicious but not confirmed asmalicious. For example, the beacon or trigger event on the endpoint 810may signal an unusual behavior that is known to commonly appearconcurrently with the detection of malware. In an aspect, when thebeacon or trigger event is a suspicious behavior, the data log 822 maybe analyzed differently than when the beacon or trigger event is aconfirmed malicious behavior. For example, the data log 822 may be sentto a different component of the system 800 through the network, e.g., toa different analysis facility 840.

The monitoring facility 830 may be disposed remotely from the endpoint810 or analysis facility 840. The monitoring facility 830 may beincluded on one or more of the endpoint 810 or analysis facility 840. Inan aspect, the monitoring facility 830 and the analysis facility 840included in the same component.

The analysis facility 840 may analyze the data log 822, e.g., as part ofa root cause analysis and to identify objects 812 compromised by theroot cause. To this end, the analysis facility 840 may utilize one ormore rules 842 for applying to the data included in the data log 822 todetermine a root cause of a beacon or trigger event such as a suspectedor actual security compromise on the endpoint 810. The analysis facility840 may reside locally on the endpoint 810 (e.g., be a part of, embeddedwithin, or locally coupled to the endpoint 810). The analysis facility840 may be an external facility, or it may reside in a virtual appliance(e.g., which could be run by a protected set of systems on their ownnetwork systems), a private cloud, a public cloud, and so forth. Theanalysis facility 840 may store locally-derived threat information foruse in subsequent identification, remediation, or other similaractivity. The analysis facility 840 may also or instead receive threatinformation from a third-party source such as any public, private,educational, or other organization that gathers information on networkthreats and provides analysis and threat detection information for useby others. This third-party information may, for example, be used toimprove detection rules or other forensic analysis that might beperformed on information in the data log 822.

The analysis facility 840 may create an event graph. In general, theevent graph may represent information in the data log 822 in a graphwhere objects 812 are nodes and events 814 are edges connecting thenodes to one another based on causal or other relationships as generallycontemplated herein. The event graph may be used by the analysisfacility 840 or other component(s) of the system 800 as part of a rootcause analysis and to identify objects 812 compromised by the rootcause. The event graph may also or instead be displayed to a user of thesystem 800 or endpoint 810, e.g., using an interactive user interface orthe like.

The system 800 may advantageously use the data log 822 to configure andinitialize an analysis in a sandboxed or otherwise isolated environmentwhere the execution of the recorded activity related to a detectedsecurity event is allowed to run. That is, rather than uploading acomplete image of an endpoint 810 using conventional techniques, thedata log 822 may include only a series of events/processes related tothe detected event that may be uploaded for execution/analysis. Theanalysis may thus include executing this series of events/processes inthe same order to determine a threat level for the endpoint 810.

The data log 822 may include data from a single endpoint 810, or from anumber of endpoints 810, for example where one endpoint 810 accesses aservice or a file on another endpoint. This advantageously facilitatestracking or detection of potentially malicious activity that spansmultiple devices, particularly where the behavior on a single endpointdoes not appear malicious. Thus, the monitoring facility 830 may monitoractivity from an endpoint 810 exclusively, or use the full context ofactivity from all protected endpoints 810, or some combination of these.Similarly, the event graph generated from the data log 822 may includeactivity from one endpoint 810 exclusively, or use the full context ofactivity from all protected endpoints 810, or some combination of these.Data logs 822 and event graphs may also or instead be stored for futureanalyses, e.g., for comparing to future data logs and event graphs.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of a method for forensic analysis for computerprocesses. The method 900 may be implemented by any of the systemsdescribed above or otherwise herein. The method 900 may be used as partof a root cause analysis, e.g., for determining a root cause of malwareon an endpoint, and for identifying computing objects affected bymalware, e.g., computing objects causally related to the root cause.

As shown in step 902, the method 900 may include monitoring events on adevice, such as a first endpoint. The events may be any as describedherein, e.g., events associated with computing objects on the endpoint.The computing objects may, for example include a data file, a process,an application, a registry entry, a network address, a peripheraldevice, or any of the other computing objects described herein. Forexample, in an aspect, the computing objects may include one or morenetwork addresses specified at any suitable level of abstraction oraccording to any suitable protocol such as a uniform resource locator(URL), an Internet Protocol (IP) address, and a domain name, and mayinclude any or a portion of associated path information or the like thatmight be associated therewith. The computing objects may also or insteadinclude a peripheral device such as a universal serial bus (USB) memory,a camera, a printer, a memory card, a removable bulk storage device, akeyboard, a printer, a scanner, a cellular phone, or any other input oroutput device that might usefully be connected to an endpoint, a server,a mobile device, and so forth. Events may include information ormessages from a threat management facility, firewall, network device,and so on, for example, that may be resident on or in communication withan endpoint. For example, a threat management facility may identify apotential or actual threat, and this may be treated as an event.

In an aspect, monitoring events on a first endpoint may includeinstrumenting a first endpoint to monitor a number of causalrelationships among a number of computing objects. For example, amonitoring facility or other monitoring component (e.g., a componentdisposed on the first endpoint or otherwise in communication with thefirst endpoint), may be configured to detect computing objects and tomonitor events on the first endpoint that associate the computingobjects in a number of causal relationships. Thus, a processor and amemory disposed on the endpoint may be configured to monitor events onthe endpoint. A remote server may also or instead be configured tomonitor events on the endpoint, for example, to create a data log ascontemplated herein.

Implementations may also or instead include monitoring events onmultiple endpoints, e.g., endpoints included in an enterprise network orthe like. Thus, in an aspect, the one or more computing objects includeat least one or more computing object(s) on a device other than thefirst endpoint, such as a second endpoint in the enterprise network. Thedevice may also or instead include a server configured to provide remoteresources to other endpoints, network devices, firewalls, gateways,routers, wireless access points, mobile devices, and so forth.

The causal relationships monitored by the system may includedependencies that form a link or an association between computingobjects or events. Useful causal relationships may include a data flow,e.g., linking computing objects based on the flow of data from onecomputing object to another computing object. The causal relationshipsmay also or instead include a control flow. For example, a firstcomputer program may generate a first event that triggers a secondcomputer program to trigger a second event, thereby creating a causalrelationship between the first computer program and the second computerprogram (and possibly a causal relationship between the first event andthe second event). In yet another aspect, the causal relationships mayinclude a network flow. For example, a computing object may access a URLor other remote resource or location and receive data. In this example,there may be a causal relationship between one or more of the computingobject, the URL, and the data. It will be understood that the term“causal relationship” and the like is intended to cover a wide range ofrelationships between computing objects that might be formed by events,and unless explicitly stated to the contrary or otherwise clear from thetext, the causal relationships may include anything that can link orassociate multiple computing objects (of the same type or differenttypes), e.g., in a directional manner, directly or indirectly.

As shown in step 904, the method 900 may include recording events suchas any of the events described above that occur on the endpoint. Thus,each event detected during monitoring may be recorded, e.g., by a datarecorder or other component, to provide a data log including a sequenceof events causally relating the number of computing objects. Asdescribed above, the data recorder may be configured to record eventsthat occur on the endpoint, or events that occur on a plurality ofendpoints. The data recorder may be locally disposed on the endpoint orotherwise in communication with the endpoint. The data recorder may alsoor instead be associated with a monitoring facility or an analysisfacility such as any of those described above. The data recorder mayrecord a sequence of events causally relating a number of computingobjects on one or more endpoints in a data log or the like disposed in amemory.

A number of events within the sequence of events may be preserved for apredetermined time window. For example, in an aspect, a data recorder orthe like may record all activity on an endpoint in a rolling buffer thatoverwrites data that is older than the predetermined time window. Thismay be true regardless of the types of computing objects associated withthe sequence of events. In another aspect, the predetermined time windowmay have a different duration for different types of computing objects(e.g., for at least two types of computing objects). By way of example,when the computing objects include one or more network addresses, thesequence of events may be preserved for a longer predetermined timewindow relative to a sequence of events associated with data files, orvice-versa. Similarly, when the computing objects include one or moreperipheral devices such as USB memories, the sequence of events may bepreserved for longer predetermined time window relative to a sequence ofevents associated with applications, or vice-versa. In implementations,the predetermined time window for which the sequence of events ispreserved may be based on the likelihood of a security event originatingfrom a certain type of computing object. For example, the reputation ofa computing object (e.g., an application) or a machine state may be usedfor determining the duration of the predetermined time window for whichthe sequence of events is preserved. Further, the predetermined timewindow for which the sequence of events is preserved may be determinedby a color of a computing object or event, e.g., as described in U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/485,759 filed on Sep. 14, 2014, which isincorporated by reference herein in its entirety. In an aspect, the timewindow for which the sequence of events is preserved may be variable oradjustable. For example, a user or administrator using a user interfaceor the like may adjust the time window for which the sequence of eventsis preserved, e.g., based on computing object type or otherwise. Forexample, one or more first event types may be recorded with a first timewindow and one or more second event types may be recorded with a secondtime window.

In an aspect, the data recorder or the like may record only certainactivity on an endpoint, e.g., activity associated with predeterminedcomputing objects. The activity may be preserved for a predeterminedamount of time dependent upon the specific computing object to which theactivity is associated. In this manner, and by way of example, the datarecorder or the like may include a record of data for one week forapplications, for three months for files, for two weeks for registryentries, and so forth. It will be understood that these timeframes areprovided by way of example and not of limitation.

In general, data may be continuously recorded, periodically recorded, orsome combination of these. Furthermore, data may be cached, stored,deleted or transmitted to a remote processing facility in any suitablemanner consistent with appropriate use of local and remote resources,and the utility or potential utility of information that is beingrecorded. In one aspect, data may be periodically deleted or otherwiseremoved from the data recorder, such as after a security event has beendetected and addressed as described below. A new data log may then becreated for recording subsequent events on the one or more endpoints.

As shown in step 906, the method 900 may include evaluating one or moreevents that occur on the endpoint. The evaluation of the one or moreevents may include the application of one or more security rules todetermine whether the one or more events indicate or suggest a securityevent such as a security compromise event, a data exposure, a malwaredetection, or the like. Thus, the evaluation of the one or more eventsmay lead to the detection of a security event. While illustrated as aseparate step, this step 906 may be performed concurrently with or insequence with the monitoring step 902 discussed above.

The security event may be any beacon or trigger event, such as any ofthose discussed herein. The security event may include an event that isrelated to network security, computer security, data security, dataleakage, data exposure, or any other actual or potential security issue.The security event may also or instead include other events of interestthat are not directly related to computer/network security where, forexample, they are useful for otherwise auditing or monitoring machinesor characterizing device behavior. Thus, the security event may be anyevent general related to operation of a computer, and does notnecessarily include an actual security compromise event. However, inimplementations, the security event may include an actual compromise toa network, an endpoint, or a computer system such as the detection ofmalware or any other threat detection. For example, the security eventmay be a security compromise event related to a specific threat, e.g.,an event related to computer-based malware including without limitationa virus, spyware, adware, a Trojan, an intrusion, an advanced persistentthreat, spam, a policy abuse, an uncontrolled access, and so forth.

Detecting the security event may include detecting a security compromiseby applying a static analysis to software objects on the first endpoint.For example, each software object may be individually analyzed for itscompliance with a security policy or the like using signatures or otherobjective characteristics. It will be understood that while staticanalysis provides one useful form of evaluation for compliance with thesecurity policy or the like, other techniques may also or instead beemployed, e.g., a behavioral analysis, a sandbox execution, networktraffic analysis, and so forth.

Detecting the security event may also or instead include detecting asecurity compromise by applying dynamic or behavioral analysis to codeexecuting on the first endpoint, or to specific computing objects (e.g.,processes) on the endpoint. For example, events that can warranttriggering the detection of the security event may include a processthat loads a particular file that is known to be malicious, or a processthat accesses a known malicious IP address, and the like.

In an aspect, detecting the security event may include detecting ahardware change or other state changes. Detecting the security event mayalso or instead include detecting a potential data leakage.

As discussed herein, a security policy may be used to detect a securityevent. This may include, for example, whitelists or blacklists of knowncomputing objects and events, or reputations and signatures thereof. Forexample, a security policy may include rules that allow computingobjects and events that are provided by a known, trusted source (e.g., atrusted user, endpoint, network, company, vendor, and so forth). Therules may be more complex, for example, where originating from a trustedsource is only one factor in determining whether to whitelist computingobjects and events. In general, the security policy may include anysuitable rules, logic, prioritizing, etc., as desired to detect asecurity event.

Although referred to herein in terms of ‘security,’ one skilled in theart will recognize that a security policy may also or instead includeother types of policies. For example, a security policy may include acorporate or network policy having a list of approved computing objectsand events, where computing objects and events outside of this list maynot necessarily be security risks, but are otherwise unwanted in thenetwork. Thus, the security policy may intend to detect malware and thelike, while also detecting other types of unwanted computing objects andevents that do not qualify as malware.

More generally, any technique or combination of techniques suitable forevaluating endpoint activity for the detection of actual or potentialsecurity compromises may be used to detect security events ascontemplated herein.

As shown in step 908, if a security event is not detected, the method900 may return to step 902 where monitoring can continue. As furthershown in step 908, if a security event is detected, a root causeanalysis or the like may be performed to identify a source of thesecurity event as further described below. That is, detecting a securityevent associated with one of the number of computing objects may triggerfurther analysis of other causally related computing objects on anendpoint (or in certain cases, remote from an endpoint) to identify acause of the security event, as distinguished from the symptom thatgenerated the beacon or trigger for the analysis.

As shown in step 910, the method 900 may include generating an eventgraph. The event graph may be generated in response to detecting thesecurity event, e.g., using the data log from the data recorder. Theevent graph may be generated at the same time as or as part of creatingthe data log. The event graph may include the sequence of eventscausally relating the number of computing objects, and morespecifically, the sequence of events and computer objects causallyassociated with the object(s) that triggered the detected securityevent.

As discussed herein, the event graph may be generated based on a datalog of events and computer objects stored by a data recorder duringoperation of the endpoint. In particular the data recorder may provide adump of logged activities, which may be causally associated into a graphfor analysis, navigation, display and so forth. Any useful portion ofthe data log may be used. For example, the data recorder may provideevent data for a window of time before, after or surrounding thedetected security event. The data log may be filtered, e.g., when thedata is written to the data log (for example, by aging events asdescribed above) or when the event graph is generated, or somecombination of these. A variety of filtering techniques may be usefullyemployed. For example, certain types of objects or events may be removedfrom an event graph for specific trigger events, or certain groups ofevents may be condensed into a single event, such as all normal activitythat occurs when a user logs into an endpoint. Similarly, computingobjects that are too remote, either within the event graph or timewise,may be pruned and removed, particularly if they have a known, lowdiagnostic significance. Thus, the event graph may be filtered andcondensed in a variety of manners to obtain a useful snapshot of eventsoptimized for root cause analytics. Filtering of the data may bedependent upon the type of security event that is detected. Filtering ofthe data may adjust the level of detail included in the event graphbased on memory limits, user parameters, security event type, or anyother object metrics or inputs. In an aspect, the data is filtered basedon reputation or the like, e.g., of computing objects included therein.For example, if an application has a good reputation, the applicationmay not include a high level of detail associated therewith in afiltered version of the data log.

In one aspect, the event graph may be generated based on a data log froma number of different endpoints and thus may represent a causal chain ofdata from various different endpoints. This approach advantageouslypermits an analysis using data that spans multiple endpoints or othernetwork devices within a single data structure or package, thuspermitting identification of a root cause even when an attack employs acomplex, multi-hop approach to network assets that might otherwise evadedetection. Event graphs may also or instead be generated separately fordifferent endpoints and presented to a user or analytical system asseparate, discrete entities. Event graphs for endpoints may be comparedwith one another, e.g., as part of the root cause analysis. For example,by analyzing and comparing similar event graphs or event graphs sharingsimilar computing objects or events, a heuristic approach may bedeveloped for identifying suspicious events and computing objects forone or more endpoints. Similarly, event graphs for different endpointsin the same network enterprise may be compared or combined, e.g., wheretwo or more endpoints have been exposed to a security event or threat.For example, event graphs for similar time periods of two or moreendpoints may be ascertained and analyzed.

In an aspect, cross-correlating between different data logs or eventgraphs may be utilized in a root cause analysis. For example, if thesame security event or root cause is identified on different endpoints,the endpoints may be flagged for review or remediation. This type ofanalysis may be used on different endpoints throughout a network.

Implementations may include a number of different event graphs stored ina data store that can be used together to detect, prevent, or determinethe root causes for suspicious activity or other activity of interest,e.g., a security event. As discussed herein, the event graphs may befiltered before being stored in the data store, which can remove systemactivity that is not of interest in such analyses. The event graphs maybe searchable, e.g., for analysis of event graphs including similarcomputing objects or events. The event graphs may also or instead belinked to one another, e.g., event graphs including similar computingobjects or events. The event graphs may be presented to a user on a userinterface or the like, e.g., an interactive user interface that allows auser to see similar or related event graphs, search the event graphs,link between event graphs, and so forth.

An event graph may use a conventional structure of nodes (computingobjects) and events (edges) to represent causal relationships amongcomputing objects. This permits the use of a wide range of graph-basedtechniques to assist in analysis of the context leading up to a detectedevent. At the same time, numerous other data structures, computerrepresentations, and visual representations of such interrelated objectsand events are also known in the art, any of which may be employed as anevent graph as contemplated herein, provided that enough descriptivedata about the context of an endpoint is captured to facilitate thevarious types of analysis and response contemplated herein.

As shown in step 912, the method 900 may include, in response todetecting the security event, traversing the event graph based on thesequence of events in a reverse order from the one of the computingobjects associated with the security event to one or more preceding onesof the computing objects. In general, the reverse order is a causallyreverse order. For example, where a network flow, data flow or controlflow has a direction from one computing object to another computingobject, the reverse order will follow this flow or causal link from thereceiving computing object backward toward the source computing object.However, this may also or instead include a chronological flow, such asin a complex event graph where the time of receipt for two differentinputs from two different sources is relevant. In general, a review ofeach of the preceding computing objects may be conducted by workingbackward from the computing object associated with the security event,e.g., to determine a root cause of the security event. In an aspect,this may include a static analysis of each of the preceding computingobjects, or a dynamic analysis of object and event interactions, or somecombination of these.

As shown in step 914, the method 900 may include applying one or morerules to the computing objects preceding the security event. Forexample, the method 900 may include applying a cause identification ruleto the preceding ones of the computing objects and the causalrelationships while traversing the event graph in order to identify oneof the computing objects as a cause of the security event. In general,the root cause analysis may attempt to identify a pattern in the eventgraph using cause identification rules to identify one of the computingobjects (or a group of the computing objects and events) as a root causeof the security event.

The cause identification rule may associate the cause with one or morecommon malware entry points. For example, common entry points include aword processing application, an electronic mail application, aspreadsheet application, a browser, or a universal serial bus (USB)drive that is attached to an endpoint, and any of these computingobjects, when encountered in an event graph, may be identified as a rootcause. For example, when traversing the event graph in a reverse orderfrom the security event, if the analysis identifies an electronic mailapplication that opened an attachment, this may be identified as theroot cause because this is often a source of compromised security on anendpoint. Similarly, when traversing the event graph in a reverse orderfrom the security event, if the analysis identifies a USB drive, or anunsecure or unencrypted USB drive, from which a file was opened, thismay be identified as a likely cause of the security event. In oneaspect, multiple candidate root causes may be identified using the causeidentification rules, and a final selection may be based on othercontextual information such as reputation, source, etc.

Security events may also or instead be caused by a certain combinationof events or combinations of events and computing objects. For example,in an aspect, the cause identification rule may associate the cause ofthe security event with a combination that includes a first processinvoking a second process and providing data to the second process. Asused herein, invoking may be interpreted broadly, e.g., where any twoprocesses share data through an intermediate file, or narrowly, e.g.,where a first process specifically spawns the second process as a childprocess. More generally, invoking a process as used herein is intendedto broadly include any causal relationship between to processesincluding, e.g., spawning a process, hijacking a process (e.g., seizingcontrol of an existing process through thread injection, processhollowing, and the like), remotely launching a process over a network,instrumenting a service in the operating system, and the like. A causeidentification rule may specify a particular type of invocationrelationship between two processes, or multiple types of invocation, orany relationship between two processes. Providing data from a firstprocess to a second process may include creating a file for use by thesecond process. For example, the cause of a security event may include afirst process that writes a file and then takes control of a secondprocess that reads data from the file so that the first process and thesecond process share data through the file.

Another example of a security event may include a known non-maliciousapplication (e.g., a commonplace word processing application) launchinga command line script, which may be identified as a cause of a securityevent. The activity underlying events that are generated may notnecessarily be malicious, but they could lead to security events orother events of interest to be further analyzed. Thus, in one aspect, acause identification rule may flag this behavior as a root cause of asecurity event, or as an event that is otherwise of diagnostic interest.

As shown in step 916, the method 900 may include traversing the eventgraph forward from an identified or presumed cause of the security eventto identify one or more other ones of the computing objects affected bythe cause. In this manner, an analysis of each of the computing objectsin the event graph may be conducted by working forward from the rootcause to other causally dependent computing objects that might becompromised or otherwise affected by the root cause. This may includelabeling or otherwise identifying the potentially compromised objects,e.g. for remediation or further analysis. A pruning step may also beemployed, e.g. where any computing objects that are not causallydependent on the root cause in some way are removed from the eventgraph.

As shown in step 918, the method 900 may include remediating one or morecomputing objects affected by the cause of the security event.Remediation may include deleting computing objects from the endpoint, orotherwise remediating the endpoint(s) using computer security techniquessuch as any described herein. In another aspect, the identification ofthe root cause may be used to create new detection rules capable ofdetecting a security event at a point in time (or causation) closer tothe root cause within the event graph. Other remediation steps mayinclude forwarding the event graph, or a filtered and pruned eventgraph, to a remote facility for analysis. This data may usefully providea map for identifying sources of malware, or for ensuring thoroughremediation by identifying all of the potentially compromised computingobjects that should be examined after the compromise has been addressed.

FIG. 10 illustrates a graphical depiction of a portion of an exampleevent graph 1000. The event graph 1000 may include a sequence ofcomputing objects causally related by a number of events, and whichprovide a description of computing activity on one or more endpoints.The event graph 1000 may be generated, for example, when a securityevent 1002 is detected on an endpoint, a gateway, or a communicationsserver, and may be based on an identification of a malicious action inreal-time or in near real-time, or on a data log or similar recordsobtained by an event data recorder during operation of the endpoint,gateway, or communications server. The event graph 1000 may be used todetermine a root cause 1004 of the security event 1002 as generallydescribed above. The event graph 1000 may also or instead becontinuously generated to serve as, or be a part of, the data logobtained by the data recorder. In any case, an event graph 1000, or aportion of an event graph 1000 in a window before or around the time ofa security event, may be obtained and analyzed after a security event1002 occurs determine its root cause 1004. The event graph 1000 depictedin the figure is provided by way of example only, and it will beunderstood that many other forms and contents for event graphs 1000 arealso or instead possible. It also will be understood that the figureillustrates a graphical depiction of an event graph 1000, which may bestored in a database or other suitable data structure.

By way of example, the event graph 1000 depicted in the figure beginswith a computing object that is a USB device 1012, which may beconnected to an endpoint. Where the USB device 1012 includes a directoryor file system, the USB device 1012 may be mounted or accessed by a filesystem on an endpoint to read contents. The USB device 1012 may bedetected 1013 and contents of the USB device 1012 may be opened 1014,e.g., by a user of the endpoint. The USB device 1012 may include one ormore files and application, e.g., a first file 1016, a second file 1018,and a first application 1020. The first file 1016 may be associated witha first event 1022 and the second file may be associated with a secondevent 1024. The first application 1020 may access one or more files onthe endpoint, e.g., the third file 1026 shown in the figure. The firstapplication 1020 may also or instead perform one or more actions 1028,such as accessing a URL 1030. Accessing the URL 1030 may download or runa second application 1032 on the endpoint, which in turn accesses one ormore files (e.g., the fourth file 1034 shown in the figure) or isassociated with other events (e.g., the third event 1036 shown in thefigure).

In the example provided by the event graph 1000 depicted in the figure,the detected security event 1002 may include the action 1028 associatedwith the first application 1020, e.g., accessing the URL 1030. By way ofexample, the URL 1030 may be a known malicious URL or a URL or networkaddress otherwise associated with malware. The URL 1030 may also orinstead include a blacklisted network address that although notassociated with malware may be prohibited by a security policy of theendpoint or enterprise network in which the endpoint is a participant.The URL 1030 may have a determined reputation or an unknown reputation.Thus, accessing the URL 1030 can be detected through known computingsecurity techniques.

In response to detecting the security event 1002, the event graph 1000may be traversed in a reverse order from a computing object associatedwith the security event 1002 based on the sequence of events included inthe event graph 1000. For example, traversing backward from the action1028 leads to at least the first application 1020 and the USB device1012. As part of a root cause analysis, one or more cause identificationrules may be applied to one or more of the preceding computing objectshaving a causal relationship with the detected security event 1002, orto each computing object having a causal relationship to anothercomputing object in the sequence of events preceding the detectedsecurity event 1002. For example, other computing objects and events maybe tangentially associated with causally related computing objects whentraversing the event graph 1000 in a reverse order—such as the firstfile 1016, the second file 1018, the third file 1026, the first event1022, and the second event 1024 depicted in the figure. In an aspect,the one or more cause identification rules are applied to computingobjects preceding the detected security event 1002 until a cause of thesecurity event 1002 is identified.

In the example shown in the figure, the USB device 1012 may beidentified as the root cause 1004 of the security event 1002. In otherwords, the USB device 1012 was the source of the application (the firstapplication 1020) that initiated the security event 1002 (the action1028 of accessing the potentially malicious or otherwise unwanted URL1030).

The event graph 1000 may similarly be traversed going forward from oneor more of the root cause 1004 or the security event 1002 to identifyone or more other computing objects affected by the root cause 1004 orthe security event 1002. For example, the first file 1016 and the second1018 potentially may be corrupted because the USB device 1012 includedmalicious content. Similarly, any related actions performed after thesecurity event 1002 such as any performed by the second application 1032may be corrupted. Further testing or remediation techniques may beapplied to any of the computing objects affected by the root cause 1004or the security event 1002.

The event graph 1000 may include one or more computing objects or eventsthat are not located on a path between the security event 1002 and theroot cause 1004. These computing objects or events may be filtered or‘pruned’ from the event graph 1000 when performing a root cause analysisor an analysis to identify other computing objects affected by the rootcause 1004 or the security event 1002. For example, computing objects orevents that may be pruned from the event graph 1000 may include a USBdrive and the USB device being detected 1013.

It will be appreciated that the event graph 1000 depicted in FIG. 10 isan abstracted, simplified version of actual nodes and events on anendpoint for demonstration. Numerous other nodes and edges will bepresent in a working computing environment. For example, when a USBdevice is coupled to an endpoint, the new hardware will first bedetected, and then the endpoint may search for suitable drivers and,where appropriate, present a user inquiry of how the new hardware shouldbe handled. A user may then apply a file system to view contents of theUSB device and select a file to open or execute as desired, or anautorun.exe or similar file may be present on the USB device that beginsto execute automatically when the USB device is inserted. All of theseoperations may require multiple operating system calls, file systemaccesses, hardware abstraction layer interaction, and so forth, all ofwhich may be discretely represented within the event graph 1000, orabstracted up to a single event or object as appropriate. Thus, it willbe appreciated that the event graph 1000 depicted in the drawing isintended to serve as an illustrative example only, and not to express orimply a particular level of abstraction that is necessary or useful forroot cause identification as contemplated herein.

The event graph 1000 may be created or analyzed using rules that defineone or more relationships between events and computing objects. The CLanguage Integrated Production System (CLIPS) is a public domainsoftware tool intended for building expert systems, and may be suitablyadapted for analysis of a graph such as the event graph 1000 to identifypatterns and otherwise apply rules for analysis thereof. While othertools and programming environments may also or instead be employed,CLIPS can support a forward and reverse chaining inference enginesuitable for a large amount of input data with a relatively small set ofinference rules. Using CLIPS, a feed of new data can trigger a newinference, which may be suitable for dynamic solutions to root causeinvestigations.

An event graph such as the event graph 1000 shown in the figure mayinclude any number of nodes and edges, where computing objects arerepresented by nodes and events are represented by edges that mark thecausal or otherwise directional relationships between computing objectssuch as data flows, control flows, network flows and so forth. Whileprocesses or files are common forms of nodes that might appear in such agraph, any other computing object such as an IP address, a registry key,a domain name, a uniform resource locator, a command line input or otherobject may also or instead be designated to be a node in an event graphas contemplated herein. Similarly, while an edge may be formed by an IPconnection, a communication, a file read, a file write, a processinvocation (parent, child, etc.), a process path, a thread injection, aregistry write, a domain name service query, a uniform resource locatoraccess and so forth other edges may be designated. As described above,when a security event is detected, the source of the security event mayserve as a starting point within the event graph 1000, which may then betraversed backward to identify a root cause using any number of suitablecause identification rules. The event graph 1000 may then usefully betraversed forward from that root cause to identify other computingobjects that are potentially tainted by the root cause so that a morecomplete remediation can be performed. The event graph 1000 may includeevents associated with one or more different endpoints, gateways, orcommunications servers.

The foregoing techniques may be employed with a communications gatewayfor an enterprise network to improve endpoint security and malwaredetection based on communications passing through the communicationsgateway. For example, malware detection may be used to initiate rootcause analysis in order to identify a cause or source of the detectedmalware, or to control a heartbeat of a source endpoint forcommunications bearing malware so that, e.g., the endpoint can probablysignal a compromised condition within the enterprise network.

FIG. 11 shows a communications gateway for an enterprise network. Ingeneral, the enterprise network 1100 may include one or more endpoints1102 and a gateway 1104 between the endpoints 1102 and a data network1106 that connects the gateway 1104 in a communicating relationship withone or more other devices 1108 that collectively form an externalnetwork 1107 to the enterprise network 1100. In general, the endpoints1102 may include any devices coupled to or otherwise associated with theenterprise network 1100, including any of the endpoints describedherein. The data network 1106 may include any data network forsupporting data communications among the devices 1108, endpoints 1102,and other network devices and the like described herein. The datanetwork 1106 may, for example, include any public network, privatenetwork or combination of these, or any other network or combination ofnetworks described herein. The other devices 1108 may include any otherendpoints, computing devices, network resources, servers, and so forththat might be coupled in a communicating relationship with the endpoints1102 through the data network 1106.

In general, the gateway 1104 manages network traffic between theenterprise network 1100 and the external networks 1107. This may includegeneral network traffic, as well as protocol-specific traffic. Thus, forexample, the gateway 1104 may be, or may include, a communicationsgateway such as an electronic mail gateway that manages electronic mailcommunications into and out of the enterprise network 1100, a voicegateway that manages voice-over-IP communications into and out of theenterprise network 1110, an instant messaging gateway that managesinstant messaging communications into and out of the enterprise network1100, a media gateway, or any other gateway or combination of gateways.It should also be appreciated that while a single gateway is shown, thegateway 1104 may include multiple instances of gateways and multipletypes of gateways, generally consistent with managing network trafficand other communications into and out of the enterprise network 1100.Similarly, while depicted as physically residing within the enterprisenetwork 1100, some instances of the gateway 1104 may also or insteadinclude a virtual gateway for any of the traffic described herein, whichmay for example be physically or logically positioned outside theenterprise network 1100 and used with a virtual private network or thelike to manage external endpoints in a manner similar to the endpoints1102 physically within the enterprise network 1100.

The communications server 1110 may be any server for managing electroniccommunications such as an electronic mail server, instant messagingserver, media server, and the like. Thus, for example, thecommunications server 1110 may be an electronic mail server configuredto manage electronic mail communications for a domain associated withthe enterprise network 1100. This may generally include receiving,storing, and routing electronic mail to electronic mail boxes forspecific users, as well as supporting access to electronic mail using aweb portal or an interface for endpoint-based electronic mail clients.Similarly, this may include transmitting electronic mail from useraccounts maintained by the communications server 1110, as well asrelated functions such as filtering, forwarding, and so forth. While thecommunications server 1110 is depicted as residing physically within theenterprise network 1100, it will be understood that a communicationsserver 1110 may also or instead reside outside the enterprise network1100, such as where the communications server 1110 is hosted by a thirdparty such as a commercial electronic mail hosting system.

In general, the communications server 1110 may have any number of useraccounts for users that are identified, e.g., by correspondingelectronic mail addresses, instant messaging addresses, voice-over-IPidentifiers, user accounts, or the like. Where the communications server1110 is hosted by an administrator for the enterprise network 1100, thecommunications sever 1110 may communicate directly with the threatmanagement facility 1112 and other network participants to managecommunications and other services provided by the communications server1110. Where the communications server 1110 is hosted by a third party,or is external to the enterprise network 1100, then the threatmanagement facility 1112, gateway 1104, and other network entities maycommunication with the communications server 1110 through any suitableprogramming interface(s) for network security, account administration,and so forth.

The threat management facility 1112 may include any of the threatmanagement facilities or related components described herein, and maygenerally operate to secure the enterprise network 1100 and endpoints1102 therein against malicious activity, malicious or accidental dataleakage, and so forth. In the context of this disclosure, the threatmanagement facility 1112 may usefully include a database 1114 to storean independent record of devices for each user that is authorized on, orotherwise registered with, the enterprise network 1100. This database1114 may also store mail addresses or other information useful foridentifying particular users within the enterprise network based on thesource address (or destination address) within electronic communicationspassing through the gateway 1104.

In one aspect, the threat management facility 1112 may include aprocessor and memory storing code that, when executing on the processor,performs the steps of scanning an electronic mail message received at amail gateway (e.g., the communications server 1110, the gateway 1104, orthe threat management facility 1112) to detect a malicious actionoriginating from within the enterprise network, and when a maliciousaction is detected, identifying a source of the electronic mail message,mapping the source to a user, querying one or more devices associatedwith the user within the enterprise network to identify an endpointwithin the enterprise network that originated the malicious action, andperforming a root cause analysis of a computing context for theendpoint, all as more generally described below.

FIG. 12 shows a method for managing security of electroniccommunications. In general, by maintaining a database or other record ofendpoints associated with users of an enterprise network, acommunication that is sourced from a user can be associated with deviceswithin the enterprise network belonging to or otherwise associated withthe user. These devices can, in turn, be queried about a security statewhen the communication includes a malicious action (or indicia ofmalicious activity).

As shown in step 1202, the method 1200 may include storing userinformation, such as within a database of a threat management facilityor other administrative resource or tool. The user information may, forexample, include a user name or other identifier(s) for a user that isregistered, credentialed, or otherwise authorized to use an enterprisenetwork, or is otherwise identifiable in the context of an enterprisenetwork. The user information may also or instead include one or moreuser names used for electronic communications such as an electronic mailaddress, an instant messaging name, an account identifier, an addressidentifier, a network identifier, a voice-over-IP phone number, or thelike. The user information may also or instead include identifiers forendpoints or other devices associated with the user. This may, forexample, include a computer, laptop, cellular phone, tablet, or otherdevice operated by the user, or any of the other endpoints describedherein including without limitation physical devices, virtual machines,and so forth.

As shown in step 1204, the method 1200 may include receiving anelectronic communication such as an electronic mail message, a textmessage, voice-over-IP voice traffic, video communication, instantmessage, or any other communication(s). In general, the electroniccommunication may be directed to a source within the enterprise networkor to a source outside the enterprise network. Thus, for example, thismay include receiving an electronic mail at a mail gateway for anenterprise network, the electronic mail directed from a source addressto a destination outside the enterprise network.

As shown in step 1206, the method 1200 may include scanning theelectronic communication, such as by scanning an electronic mail orother electronic communication to detect a malicious action originatingfrom within the enterprise. Scanning an electronic communication mayinclude analyzing content of the electronic communication for patternsindicative of malicious activity. In general, this may include anysuitable techniques for detecting malicious action based on, e.g.,signatures, behavioral analysis, machine learning derived classifier,header information inspection, content inspection, packet inspection,network traffic analysis, rules and policy enforcement, or any othersuitable techniques. For an electronic mail message, scanning may alsoor instead include scanning one or more attachments to the electronicmail message using any suitable techniques. More generally, scanning anelectronic communication may include scanning one or more portions of,or attachments to, the electronic communication. Scanning may alsoinclude considering electronic communication in the context of otherelectronic communication, such as a sharp increase.

The malicious action may include any type of malicious action. Forexample, the malicious action may include spam, such as a stream of spamcommunications originating from a compromised endpoint within theenterprise network. More generally, the malicious action may be anymalicious action including, without limitation, communication ofmalicious code, data exfiltration, spam, phishing attacks, denial ofservice attacks, and so forth.

As shown in step 1208, the method 1200 may include determining whether amalicious action is detected. If no malicious action is detected, themethod 1200 may include returning to step 1204 where a next electroniccommunication may be received and analyzed. If a malicious action isdetected, then the method 1200 may proceed to step 1210 where a sourceof the electronic communication may be identified.

As shown in step 1210, the method 1200 may include identifying a sourceof the electronic communication. The manner in which the source isidentified may depend on the source, the nature of the electroniccommunication, and so forth. For example, in the case of an electronicmail with a source address such as a sender's electronic mail address,this may include identifying an electronic mail server that transmittedthe electronic mail from the source address. More generally, this mayinclude any technique for identifying a source of the electroniccommunication. For example, where the source includes an electronic mailserver, identifying the source may include any suitable, correspondingtechnique for locating the hosting site or other source for the sender'selectronic communication, such as by identifying a network address for amailbox associated with the electronic mail server. This host may inturn be queried for information about a user associated with the sourceor the ‘from’ electronic mail address. In another aspect, identifying auser within the enterprise network associated with the electronic mailaddress may include using a database of enterprise network users andcorresponding addresses maintained, e.g., at a threat managementfacility or other enterprise network resource.

It will be noted that many electronic communications provide sufficientinformation to determine an intermediate source within a network such asan electronic mail server, which may be located, for example, based onthe top level domain of the sender's address for an electronic mailmessage, or based on an IP address or the like of a server or the likethat transmitted the electronic communication. However, this will nottypically provide sufficient information to determine a specificmachine, process, or user that originated the electronic mail, e.g.,from an electronic mail client installed on an endpoint or through a webmail interface for the electronic mail server. In order to trace asource beyond the communications server, additional steps may berequired.

As shown in step 1212, the method 1200 may include mapping the source toa user. For example, where the electronic communication is an electronicmail received at a gateway or a mail gateway for an enterprise network,mapping may include mapping a source address for the electronic mail toa user associated with an enterprise network. It will be understood thatin certain instances, it may be possible for a threat managementfacility to directly identify a user and/or devices that sourced aparticular electronic communication, such as where the enterprisemaintains an internally hosted electronic mail platform, and a user hasonly one associated device. Thus, the method 1200 may simply includeidentifying one or more devices associated with a user that originatedthe electronic communication using any suitable techniques. However,where this information is not directly available to the threatmanagement facility or otherwise, candidate user devices can beidentified and queried using the techniques described herein.

As shown in step 1214, the method may include identifying one or moreendpoints associated with the user that originated the malicious action.Where a database of user devices is available, e.g., on a threatmanagement facility or the like, to identify candidate devices that areassociated with the user, then this database may be used to create alist of endpoints or devices such as one or more computers, laptops,tablets, phones, or other computing devices known to be associated withthe user. The method 1200 may then include querying these devicesassociated with the user to identify a particular one of the endpointsor devices within the enterprise network that originated the maliciousaction. In another aspect, where there is no preexisting map of users toendpoints, some or all of the endpoints on the enterprise network mayfirst be queried to evaluate user presence on active devices using anysuitable techniques. This may be particularly useful where, e.g., anumber of thin clients are deployed throughout an enterprise forintermittent use by multiple users. An endpoint may be securely queried,for example, using a secure channel such as a secure heartbeat, forexample as described with respect to FIG. 3. An endpoint may keep arecord, for example in the data log 822 of FIG. 8 of endpoint activity,that may be queried to identify activity of a user.

In another aspect, some or all of the endpoints in an enterprise networkmay be queried based specifically on the content or other metadata foran electronic communication. While this may be generally less efficientthan targeting queries to known user devices, it can facilitate broaderinquiries across an enterprise network when sender information is notavailable, e.g., because a source address was spoofed or obfuscated.This may, for example, be used intermittently when a user cannototherwise be identified as the source of an electronic communication.

Querying the endpoint(s) may usefully take a number of forms. Forexample, this may include generally querying endpoints about securitystatus, policy compliance, or the like, e.g., so that a compromiseassociated with the malicious action can be inferred from otherinformation available for endpoints. This may also include specificallyquerying endpoints about the electronic communication and the contentsthereof to determine whether a specific communication was initiated by aspecific endpoint. This may also or instead include more specific formsof query, such as by querying an endpoint and identifying a process onthe endpoint that initiated the electronic communication.

A variety of techniques may also be used to support queries andresponses suitable for identifying endpoints as contemplated herein. Forexample, querying one or more devices associated with a user may includequerying an endpoint agent executing on each of the one or more devices.Once a source endpoint has been identified, a number of additional,useful steps may be taken.

As shown in step 1216, the method 1600 may include initiating a remedialaction. For example, this may include performing a root cause analysisof the endpoint, e.g., using any of the root cause analysis techniquesdescribed above. This may include performing a root cause analysis of acomputing context for the endpoint, which context may include processesand other computing objects on the endpoint, as well as other externalobjects such as computing objects coupled in a communicatingrelationship with the endpoint through a data network or othercommunications link, or one or more other devices or the like coupled ina communicating relationship with the endpoint through the data network.Where the endpoint is a virtual machine, or includes a virtual machine,the computing context may also or instead include a hypervisor for theendpoint. Referring briefly again to FIG. 10, in one example, an action1028 causing a security event 1002 is the sending of an email that wasdetected at the email gateway. The steps described would result in adetermination that the root cause of the malicious activity detected atthe email gateway was the root cause 1004.

A suitably instrumented endpoint can be queried, e.g., through asecurity agent or the like, to identify a particular process thatoriginated the malicious electronic communication. In this case,performing a root cause analysis may include initiating the root causeanalysis with the process on the endpoint that originated the electroniccommunication, such as to identify an origin of the process. In anotheraspect, initiating a remedial action may include coloring a process onthe endpoint that originated the electronic communication as acompromised process.

The root cause analysis may also be used to develop preventativemeasures. For example, in one aspect, performing a root cause analysismay include identifying a pattern of causal relationships associatedwith a root cause of the malicious action and applying the pattern ofcausal relationships to prevent a second instance of the maliciousaction.

In another aspect, initiating a remedial action may include changing asecurity status of the endpoint to a compromised state. This may also orinstead include requesting the endpoint to modify a heartbeat from theendpoint. The endpoint may, for example, use a heartbeat such as aperiodic communication from the endpoint to a threat management facilityfor the enterprise network containing information about a status of theendpoint. The heartbeat may be a digitally signed heartbeat, or theheartbeat may be encrypted or otherwise secured to prevent tampering,permit validation, and so forth. Where the endpoint provides such aheartbeat, such as a secure heartbeat or other communication, theheartbeat may be usefully modified to indicate a compromised state, suchas by adding an indicator of a compromised state, poor reputation,out-of-policy condition, or the like. The security status may be used bya gateway, threat management facility, the endpoint itself, or anothernetwork device as a trigger to take steps to control the endpoint.

Any other useful form of remediation may also or instead be performed,such as by scanning the endpoint for malware, quarantining the endpoint,evaluating policy compliance of the endpoint (e.g., for softwareupdates, security patches, and so forth), terminating affectedprocesses, uninstalling applications associated with the affectedprocesses, and so forth.

According to the foregoing, in one aspect, there is disclosed herein asystem for securing electronic communications within an enterprisenetwork. The system may include an enterprise network including a numberof endpoints, a mail gateway configured to manage electronic mailcommunications to and from the enterprise network, and a threatmanagement facility. The threat management facility may include aprocessor and a memory storing code that, when executing on theprocessor, performs the steps of scanning an electronic mail messagereceived at the mail gateway to detect a malicious action originatingfrom within the enterprise network, and when a malicious action isdetected, identifying a source of the electronic mail message, mappingthe source to a user, querying one or more devices associated with theuser within the enterprise network to identify an endpoint within theenterprise network that originated the malicious action, and modifying aheartbeat of the endpoint to indicate a compromised state. The processormay also or instead perform the step of performing a root cause analysisof a computing context for the endpoint.

The above systems, devices, methods, processes, and the like may berealized in hardware, software, or any combination of these suitable fora particular application. The hardware may include a general-purposecomputer and/or dedicated computing device. This includes realization inone or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, embeddedmicrocontrollers, programmable digital signal processors or otherprogrammable devices or processing circuitry, along with internal and/orexternal memory. This may also, or instead, include one or moreapplication specific integrated circuits, programmable gate arrays,programmable array logic components, or any other device or devices thatmay be configured to process electronic signals. It will further beappreciated that a realization of the processes or devices describedabove may include computer-executable code created using a structuredprogramming language such as C, an object oriented programming languagesuch as C++, or any other high-level or low-level programming language(including assembly languages, hardware description languages, anddatabase programming languages and technologies) that may be stored,compiled or interpreted to run on one of the above devices, as well asheterogeneous combinations of processors, processor architectures, orcombinations of different hardware and software. In another aspect, themethods may be embodied in systems that perform the steps thereof, andmay be distributed across devices in a number of ways. At the same time,processing may be distributed across devices such as the various systemsdescribed above, or all of the functionality may be integrated into adedicated, standalone device or other hardware. In another aspect, meansfor performing the steps associated with the processes described abovemay include any of the hardware and/or software described above. Allsuch permutations and combinations are intended to fall within the scopeof the present disclosure.

Embodiments disclosed herein may include computer program productscomprising computer-executable code or computer-usable code that, whenexecuting on one or more computing devices, performs any and/or all ofthe steps thereof. The code may be stored in a non-transitory fashion ina computer memory, which may be a memory from which the program executes(such as random-access memory associated with a processor), or a storagedevice such as a disk drive, flash memory or any other optical,electromagnetic, magnetic, infrared or other device or combination ofdevices. In another aspect, any of the systems and methods describedabove may be embodied in any suitable transmission or propagation mediumcarrying computer-executable code and/or any inputs or outputs fromsame.

The elements described and depicted herein, including in flow charts andblock diagrams throughout the figures, imply logical boundaries betweenthe elements. However, according to software or hardware engineeringpractices, the depicted elements and the functions thereof may beimplemented on machines through computer executable media having aprocessor capable of executing program instructions stored thereon as amonolithic software structure, as standalone software modules, or asmodules that employ external routines, code, services, and so forth, orany combination of these, and all such implementations may be within thescope of the present disclosure. Examples of such machines may include,but may not be limited to, personal digital assistants, laptops,personal computers, mobile phones, other handheld computing devices,medical equipment, wired or wireless communication devices, transducers,chips, calculators, satellites, tablet PCs, electronic books, gadgets,electronic devices, devices having artificial intelligence, computingdevices, networking equipment, servers, routers and the like.Furthermore, the elements depicted in the flow chart and block diagramsor any other logical component may be implemented on a machine capableof executing program instructions. Thus, while the foregoing drawingsand descriptions set forth functional aspects of the disclosed systems,no particular arrangement of software for implementing these functionalaspects should be inferred from these descriptions unless explicitlystated or otherwise clear from the context. Similarly, it may beappreciated that the various steps identified and described above may bevaried, and that the order of steps may be adapted to particularapplications of the techniques disclosed herein. All such variations andmodifications are intended to fall within the scope of this disclosure.As such, the depiction and/or description of an order for various stepsshould not be understood to require a particular order of execution forthose steps, unless required by a particular application, or explicitlystated or otherwise clear from the context. Absent an explicitindication to the contrary, the disclosed steps may be modified,supplemented, omitted, and/or re-ordered without departing from thescope of this disclosure.

The method steps of the implementations described herein are intended toinclude any suitable method of causing such method steps to beperformed, consistent with the patentability of the following claims,unless a different meaning is expressly provided or otherwise clear fromthe context. So, for example performing the step of X includes anysuitable method for causing another party such as a remote user, aremote processing resource (e.g., a server or cloud computer) or amachine to perform the step of X. Similarly, performing steps X, Y and Zmay include any method of directing or controlling any combination ofsuch other individuals or resources to perform steps X, Y and Z toobtain the benefit of such steps. Thus, method steps of theimplementations described herein are intended to include any suitablemethod of causing one or more other parties or entities to perform thesteps, consistent with the patentability of the following claims, unlessa different meaning is expressly provided or otherwise clear from thecontext. Such parties or entities need not be under the direction orcontrol of any other party or entity, and need not be located within aparticular jurisdiction.

It will be appreciated that the methods and systems described above areset forth by way of example and not of limitation. Numerous variations,additions, omissions, and other modifications will be apparent to one ofordinary skill in the art. In addition, the order or presentation ofmethod steps in the description and drawings above is not intended torequire this order of performing the recited steps unless a particularorder is expressly required or otherwise clear from the context. Thus,while particular embodiments have been shown and described, it will beapparent to those skilled in the art that various changes andmodifications in form and details may be made therein without departingfrom the spirit and scope of this disclosure and are intended to form apart of the invention as defined by the following claims, which are tobe interpreted in the broadest sense allowable by law.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer program product comprisingnon-transitory computer readable code embodied in a computer readablemedium that, when executing on one or more computing devices, performsthe steps of: receiving an electronic mail at a mail gateway for anenterprise network, the electronic mail addressed from an electronicmail address to a second electronic mail address; scanning theelectronic mail to detect a malicious action originating from within theenterprise network; when a malicious action is detected, performing thesteps of: identifying a user within the enterprise network associatedwith the electronic mail address using a database of enterprise networkusers and corresponding addresses; querying one or more devicesassociated with the user within the enterprise network to identify anendpoint within the enterprise network that originated the maliciousaction; performing a root cause analysis of the endpoint; andremediating the endpoint based on the root cause analysis.
 2. A systemcomprising: an enterprise network including a number of endpoints; amail gateway configured to manage electronic mail communications to andfrom the enterprise network; and a threat management facility, thethreat management facility including a processor and a memory storingcode that, when executing on the processor, performs the steps ofscanning an electronic mail message received at the mail gateway todetect a malicious action originating from within the enterprisenetwork, and when a malicious action is detected, identifying a sourceof the electronic mail message, mapping the source to a user, queryingone or more devices associated with the user within the enterprisenetwork to identify an endpoint within the enterprise network thatoriginated the malicious action, and performing a root cause analysis ofa computing context for the endpoint.
 3. The system of claim 2 whereinthe source includes an electronic mail server.
 4. The system of claim 2wherein scanning the electronic mail message includes scanning one ormore attachments to the electronic mail message.
 5. A method comprising:receiving an electronic communication from within an enterprise network,the electronic communication directed to a destination outside theenterprise network; scanning the electronic communication to detect amalicious action originating from within the enterprise network; when amalicious action is detected, performing the steps of: identifying asource of the electronic communication; mapping the source to a user;querying one or more devices associated with the user within theenterprise network to identify an endpoint within the enterprise networkthat originated the malicious action; and performing a root causeanalysis of a computing context for the endpoint.
 6. The method of claim5 further comprising identifying a pattern of causal relationshipsassociated with a root cause of the malicious action and applying thepattern of causal relationships to prevent a second instance of themalicious action.
 7. The method of claim 5 wherein the computing contextincludes one or more devices coupled in a communicating relationshipwith the endpoint through a data network.
 8. The method of claim 5wherein the computing context includes a hypervisor for the endpoint. 9.The method of claim 5 wherein the electronic communication includes anelectronic mail message.
 10. The method of claim 9 wherein the sourceincludes an electronic mail server.
 11. The method of claim 5 whereinthe electronic communication includes a text message.
 12. The method ofclaim 5 wherein the malicious action includes spam.
 13. The method ofclaim 5 wherein the malicious action includes data exfiltration.
 14. Themethod of claim 5 wherein scanning the electronic communication includesanalyzing content of the electronic communication for patternsindicative of malicious activity.
 15. The method of claim 5 whereinscanning the electronic communication includes scanning one or moreattachments to the electronic communication.
 16. The method of claim 5wherein identifying the source includes identifying at least one networkaddress for a mailbox associated with the source.
 17. The method ofclaim 5 wherein querying one or more devices associated with the userincludes querying an endpoint agent executing on each of the one or moredevices.
 18. The method of claim 5 further comprising identifying aprocess on the endpoint that initiated the electronic communication. 19.The method of claim 18 further comprising coloring the process as acompromised process.
 20. The method of claim 18 wherein performing theroot cause analysis includes initiating the root cause analysis with theprocess on the endpoint that originated the electronic communication.21. A method comprising: receiving an electronic communication fromwithin an enterprise network, the electronic communication directed to adestination outside the enterprise network; scanning the electroniccommunication to detect a malicious action originating from within theenterprise network; when a malicious action is detected, performing thesteps of: identifying a user that initiated the electroniccommunication; determining on or more devices within the enterprisenetwork associated with the user; querying one or more devices toidentify an endpoint within the enterprise network that originated themalicious action; and performing a root cause analysis of a computingcontext for the endpoint.